Out of the Furnace Movie Review

This movie is probably worth seeing for the cast alone to be honest. However, there is more to Scott Cooper's drama than that....

Out of the Furnace is directed by Scott Cooper and tells the story of a man named Russell Baze. Baze works in a steel mill and is very much down in his luck. Practically everything  in his life that could go wrong does go wrong for him in Out of the Furnace; he is part of a car accident which puts him in jail, he loses his girlfriend plus misses his father's funeral while serving jail time. On top of all that, he has to deal with his younger brother Rodney who winds himself into trouble with a drug lord.

This movie does have some excellent things going for it but overall Out of the Furnace just didn't entirely click with me.

However, the acting and the performances are all fantastic from an all star cast. Christian Bale excels as the lead character Russell, a damaged steel-mill worker who experiences a lot of misfortune. As usual, Bale's committed performance sells the character allowing us audience members to route for the guy.

Zoe Saldana, Willem Dafoe and Forest Whitaker all put in great performances, further proving that the talent is spread across the entire cast.

Casey Affleck is also terrific in the movie as Russell's brother Rodney. Affleck contributes to the movie by playing brilliantly an Iraq War veteran attempting to adjust to normal life after the traumatic things he's experienced. Out of the Furnace also does a good job at showing just how damaging life can be, especially for returning war vets.

Woody Harrelson is great as the villain. He is intimidating and has such an evil screen presence about him. The acting from him is great. However, his character is also a little bit on the over dramatic side, he was a bit cartoony.

As said before the acting is absolutely amazing. For me Out of the Furnace isn't as good as it could be due to a few issues with the screenplay. While the actual dialogue is good, the script tries to be more metaphorically heavy-handed than it deserves to be.

Also, there are a few scenes in the movie that do feel a little out of place. The final shot of the movie didn't really make sense in that they didn't fit with the tone of the movie's thrilling final act. Also, the very first scene was also unnecessary in that the only reason it was put in was to illustrate just how evil Woody Harrelson's character is. The plot explains that and that particular scene isn't needed at all.

I also had a few issues with the movie's pacing. The build up his very patient and as a result, slow. If they had trimmed the movie by say 15 minutes I probably wouldn't have a problem with Out of the Furnace's length.

The directing from Scott Cooper's is patient and works well with the quiet and dramatic tone of the movie. Camera placement is very carefully done and Cooper and the technical team behind him do brilliantly at making Out of the Furnace a good looking movie.

To summarise it is a bit of a mixed bag. The acting and directing is good from all the talent involve but other problems with pacing and the writing mean that as a drama Out of the Furnace just doesn't really work for me. It isn't a bad movie though:


Rating - C+


1 sentence summary - A human drama that doesn't quite work on all levels, despite some excellent acting performances!


Can't wait to see how Christian Bale does in American Hustle, one of my most anticipated movies at the moment.

Thanks for reading,
Matt