![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.moviemansguide.com\/images\/main\/logos\/foxhe-sm.jpg\" "\\"Out")
Out of the Furnace<\/i><\/b> never quite took advantage of a tremendous cast, especially Christian Bale, with a story that\u2019s not very compelling and although I get the symbolism Cooper was going for, it didn\u2019t gel for one reason or another. However, is it worth seeing? I don\u2019t think you\u2019ll regret at least giving it a rental as there are some solid performances and a couple truly good scenes.<\/p>\n
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Out of the Furnace<\/span> Genre(s): <\/b>Drama, Crime MOVIE INFO: Theatrical Release Date: <\/b>December 6, 2013<\/p>\n DISC INFO: Audio: <\/b>English (DTS-HD MA 5.1) <\/p>\n Note: <\/b>This review contains major spoilers<\/b> about the plot, so readers beware.<\/p>\n Scott Cooper follows up the melancholy drama Crazy Heart<\/i>, for which Jeff Bridges took home the Oscar for Best Actor, with Out of the Furnace<\/i><\/b>, a quiet, character-driven drama with a sense of hopelessness at its core. This is a bit of darker film, however, and a big upgrade with a very talented ensemble cast yet where Crazy Heart<\/i> had raw emotion, Furnace<\/i><\/b> is cold and frankly forgettable despite the best of intentions.<\/p>\n The story, which opens in 2008, is set in a small Pennsylvania blue collar town where Russell Baze (CHRISTIAN BALE) works at a steel mill, has a beautiful girlfriend, Lena (ZOE SALDANA), wayward brother Rodney (CASEY AFFLECK) who is a gambler and in debt to bookie a man named John Petty (WILLEM DOFOE) who is surprisingly gentle and understanding, an ailing father and an uncle, Gerald (SAM SHEPARD), who helps out whenever he can.<\/p>\n Life is tough for Russell but generally good but it\u2019s turned upside down after leaving the bar, he crashes into a car pulling out into the road, killing both the driver and a kid in the backseat. Not wasting time, thankfully, there\u2019s no arrest or trial, we fast forward to Russell serving a prison sentence presumably for vehicular manslaughter. This sequence is also relatively short but effective learning that: Lena hasn\u2019t visited him and is dating town Chief Wesley Barnes (FOREST WHITAKER), his father died and, in visits, Rodney reveals he has joined the army and served many tours overseas which changes him for the worst.<\/p>\n Eventually Russell is released and hopes to resume life but with Lena gone and Rodney increasingly aggressive, participating in bare knuckle fights, and back to the vigorous work at the steel mill which is set to soon close thanks to cheaper imports. As his relationship with Rodney becomes strained as Russell wants him to settle down and take a normal job rather than fighting, Rodney\u2019s need a release for his aggression, he convinces Petty to take him to New Jersey where major crime lord, and all around psycho Harlan DeGroat (WOODY HARRELSON) runs the show. To show how dangerous he is, the movie actually opens with a prologue with DeGroat at a drive-in theater where he abuses his date and beats the living crap out of a man who dared to intervene. But thanks to DeGroat\u2019s inability to control his emotions and take vengeance against those who he perceived wronged him, leads to the deaths of Petty and Rodney.<\/p>\n Back in Pennsylvania, Russell receives word concerning his brother and with the help of Uncle Gerald, goes to DeGroat\u2019s territory to get answers being dissatisfied with Barnes\u2019 abilities and that DeGroat controls his territory in New Jersey where the local town authorities refuse to do anything.<\/p>\n Out of the Furnace<\/i><\/b> is a gritty and brutal drama that had so much potential but under the direction of Scott Cooper, comes across as detached rather than packing any sort of an emotional punch, this despite a cast of amazing actors, five of whom are either Oscar nominated or winners (Bale, Whitaker, Shepard, Dafoe and Affleck). With a year strong on dramas and in acting, this one falls by the wayside thanks in part to a screenplay by Cooper and Brad Ingelsby that never achieves its lofty goals.<\/p>\n Now, in fairness to the writing, there are a couple scenes that work and show some emotional depth, one of which is between Russell and Lena not long after his release from prison. It\u2019s one of the few times I felt any sort of emotion and it hammers home how things changed due to a deadly mistake; Bale and Saldana were both great in the scene, if only the remainder of the film could match it.<\/p>\n The acting in particular, though, isn\u2019t bad. Christian Bale in the lead once again delivers a great performance showing quiet range with a character grown weary with the actions he takes throughout the course of the film (interestingly enough, the role was going to be played by Leonardo DiCaprio who left but still served as a producer); Casey Affleck for as little he\u2019s in it plays off of Bale nicely and shows his own violent inertia due to the war; Woody Harrelson once again shows his range and is effective as a villain, it\u2019s just a shame he\u2019s done up as a caricature rather than a multi-dimensional character, no other motivations shown; and lastly Zoe Saldana and Forest Whitaker whose both roles are limited, Whitaker especially.<\/p>\n In the end, Out of the Furnace<\/i><\/b> certainly had plenty going for it between a solid director in Scott Cooper and a fantastic cast consisting of a few Oscar nominees and winners. But for whatever reason, likely the screenplay, it never quite meshes and on an emotional level I left feeling basically nothing which is a damn shame.<\/p>\n Inspiration (3:30; HD)<\/span><\/b> is a short featurette where the main actors tell how they got into acting.<\/p>\n Scott Cooper (6:39; HD)<\/span><\/b> is an interview with co-writer and director talking about his approach to filmmaking.<\/p>\n Crafting the Fight Scenes (5:15; HD)<\/span><\/b> looks at how the fights were choreographed and shot.<\/p>\n The Music of Out of the Furnace<\/i> (9:07; HD)<\/span><\/b> examines the score and songs featured in the film and how it influenced the story.<\/p>\n Also included are the Theatrical Trailer (2:24; HD)<\/span><\/b> and the activation code for the UltraViolet Digital Copy<\/span><\/b>.<\/p>\n Previews<\/b> \u2013 Robocop<\/i>, The Counselor<\/i><\/p>\n Out of the Furnace<\/i><\/b> arrives on Blu-ray with a 1080p high-definition transfer and presented in its original 2.40 widescreen aspect ratio. While not the prettiest looking transfer with director Scott Cooper trying to convey the desolate and despair of the town as well as the characters, it\u2019s a dark and gritty-looking transfer. Black levels are stark showing no artifacting or pixilation and the detail levels are also sharp looking.<\/p>\n The 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track isn\u2019t anything amazing yet it\u2019s still effective. The bulk of the movie is filled with either dialogue or Dickon Hinchliffe\u2019s somber and dramatic score. There are some gunfire and fight brutal fight scenes that help round out the lossless track where most of the audio coming from the front and center channels and the rear speakers relegated for ambient and side action noises.<\/p>\n Overall, Out of the Furnace<\/i><\/b> never quite took advantage of a tremendous cast, especially Christian Bale, with a story that\u2019s not very compelling and although I get the symbolism Cooper was going for, it didn\u2019t gel for one reason or another. However, is it worth seeing? I don\u2019t think you\u2019ll regret at least giving it a rental as there are some solid performances and a couple truly good scenes. The Blu-ray released by Fox offers up great audio\/video transfers and a limited wealth of bonus material.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n The Movieman Out of the Furnace never quite took advantage of a tremendous cast, especially Christian Bale, with a story that\u2019s not very compelling and although I get the symbolism Cooper was going for, it didn\u2019t gel for one reason or another. However, is it worth seeing? I don\u2019t think you\u2019ll regret at least giving it a … Continue reading “Out of the Furnace Blu-ray Review”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1389,60,194,1556,2791,850,270],"class_list":["post-7010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blurayreviews","tag-casey-affleck","tag-christian-bale","tag-forest-whitaker","tag-sam-shepard","tag-william-dafoe","tag-woody-harrelson","tag-zoe-saldana"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7010"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7010\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27674,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7010\/revisions\/27674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviemansguide.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n(2013)<\/strong><\/p>\n
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\nFox | R \u2013 104 min. \u2013 $29.99 | March 11, 2014<\/p>\n\n\n
\n ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.moviemansguide.com\/images\/reviews\/2014\/outofthefurnace-bd.jpg\" "\\"Buy")
<\/a><\/td>\n <\/p>\n
\n<\/span>Directed by: <\/b>Scott Cooper
\nWriter(s): <\/b>Brad Ingelsby and Scott Cooper (written by)
\nCast: <\/b>Christian Bale, Woody Harrelson, Casey Affleck, Forest Whitaker, William Dafoe, Zoe Saldana, Sam Shepard<\/p>\n
\n<\/span>Features: <\/b>Featurettes, Digital Copy
\nNumber of Discs: <\/b>1<\/p>\n
\nVideo: <\/b>1080p\/Widescreen 2.40
\nSubtitles: <\/b>English SDH, Spanish
\nDisc Size: <\/b>39.9 GB
\nCodec: <\/b>MPEG-4 AVC
\nRegion(s): <\/strong>A<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/p>\nTHE MOVIE<\/strong> \u2013 3.25\/5<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/p>\nSPECIAL FEATURES \u2013 2.0\/5<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/p>\nVIDEO \u2013 4.75\/5<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/p>\nAUDIO \u2013 4.5\/5<\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/p>\nOVERALL \u2013 3.25\/5<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\n<\/i>Published: <\/b>03\/26\/2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"