Out of the Furnace Director: Scott Cooper Starring: Casey Affleck, Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Sam Shepard ⋆⋆⋆⋆
If Cooper's Out of the Furnace had been made in the 1970s, it would be a major Oscar contender in the forthcoming awards season. As it is, this downbeat drama – which plays like a distant cousin to 1978's The Deer Hunter – has barely been mentioned. Yet with a dream ensemble cast, led by a steely Bale, a rich, resonant script and a director on uncompromising form, the white-hot Furnace has all the hallmarks of a film that will stand the test of time.
Set in 2008, in the blue-collar recession-hit town of Braddock, Pennsylvania, Bale plays Russell Baze, a steel-mill worker whose life spirals out of control when his hot-headed soldier brother Rodney (Affleck) gets involved with some unsavoury characters in the Appalachian Mountains. Chief among them is Woody Harrelson’s Harlan DeGroat – a vile, violent soul who makes the actor’s own serial-murdering Mickey Knox in Natural Born Killers look like a Good Samaritan.
Casting gilt-edged support – Dafoe, Zoe Saldana, Forest Whitaker and Shepard – Furnace boasts none of the sentimentality of 2009's Crazy Heart, Cooper's Oscar-heralded debut set amid the country music scene. Instead, it's a marvellously articulated study of male angst, impotence and revenge, with Bale and Affleck bouncing off each other brilliantly. Coming at you bare-knuckled, it'll leave you bruised and battered – which doesn't make for the most uplifting experience. But the courage it takes to make a film such as this – one that back in the 1970s would have been standard-issue – makes it one to relish.