“Out of the Furnace” is a good movie, though it does fall short of greatness because of over familiarity. With elements of revenge films, movies about depressed blue collar towns in America, and stories about struggling families, there is little that feels new or fresh or original with “Out of the Furnace“. But there’s nothing new about chicken parmigiana yet if it is made well, it can’t be beat, right? So “Out of the Furnace” is like a meal you’ve had plenty of times before, and while it may not excite you, you still appreciate that it’s well made and with the highest quality of ingredients.

This is a story about a couple of brothers, Russell Baze (Christian Bale) and his younger bro Rodney (Casey Affleck). They live in Braddock, PA, which is a dying little town on its last legs, as rumors of the mill being shut down looms over everyone like the Sword of Damocles, and tragedy hits the Baze family pretty hard early on, and then gets compounded thanks to some unfortunate circumstances mixed with bad decisions. Soon enough, Russell has to deal with his girlfriend leaving him (Zoe Saldana) and his brother getting mixed up in a bad way with a local bookie (Willem Dafoe) and a violent criminal New Jersey hillbilly (Woody Harrelson). Round out the cast with always reliable actors Sam Shepard and Forest Whitaker and you got a movie that hums with life and meaning, even if its not saying anything original or deeply profound.

Because there is some stuff in here about the depressed American economy, thanks to both the setting and the very specific 2008 pre-presidential election setting, but nothing is really SAID about this state of the economy, it is just the setting for the story. Likewise, Rodney is a soldier with four tours of duty in Iraq under his belt, and he’s got both PTSD from the tours and he’s struggling to find work back in the States, but again, there is not much to distinguish this war veteran from other war veterans from other movies featuring characters like this.Continue Reading …