Out Of The Furnace (2013) * *

Directed by:  Scott Cooper

Starring:  Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson, Willem Dafoe, Zoe Saldana, Sam Shepard, Forest Whitaker

Out Of The Furnace is a film that sure does take a very roundabout way to arrive at its inevitable conclusion.      It takes so long to unfold, with minimal dramatic impact, until finally our impatience shows and we want the damn thing over with already.     We have a very good cast caught in a movie that wants to be Deep, AND Meaningful, AND Deer Hunter-esque, AND a formula revenge film where the baddie finally gets what's coming to him.     Out Of The Furnace doesn't achieve any of the above successfully.

This is a movie that desires to be a document of two brothers living in rural Pennsylvania who suffer for various reasons.     They are Russell Bays (Bale),  a straight-arrow mill worker with a dying father and a brother named Rodney (Affleck), who seems lost when he's home in between multiple tours of duty in Iraq.     Russell has a few too many brews one night and crashes into another vehicle, killing the child inside.     He is sent away for vehicular manslaughter, in the meantime losing his girlfriend Lena (Saldana) to the local sheriff and eventually his father.

Upon release, Russell reclaims his job at the mill and renovates his father's home, while his brother falls deeper and deeper into a gambling debt to local bookie John Petty (Dafoe).     Rodney becomes a bare-knuckle fighter asked to take dives in order to pay off the debts.     He begs to fight in the Rampopo mountains, which are controlled by the ruthless psycho Harlan De Groat (Harrelson) who looks mean, talks meaner, and shoots up crystal meth in between his toes.     In the beginning of the film, we see him assualting a prostitute and then an intervening bystander at a drive-in movie.     Nice guy.     Harlan De Groat is part of a recent trend in films, in which the crime lord is so mean and evil that it's a wonder anyone would want to do business with him or even be around him.      Rodney chooses to do business with him, even though he should've run far, far away, with deadly consequences.

By this point, we know where the movie is headed, although it takes its sweet time getting there.    We know there will be a showdown between Russell and Harlan, although I think Harlan is too smart to fall for the trap Russell sets for him.     In the meantime, Russell has a Profound hunting day with his uncle in which a deer is killed and he comes to terms with the fact that his ex is now pregnant and not leaving the sheriff (Whitaker) any time soon.      And why oh why did Whitaker choose to speak with an intentionally hoarse voice which had me thinking he had a bad cold?

Some of the acting choices here are distracting, including Bale's performance, which is more a series of affectations instead of a whole performance.     He speaks some of his lines in such a low register that we think he's whispering.     It distracts and doesn't allow us to fully grasp or care for the character.     Harrelson is appropriately menacing.    Dafoe seems like a pretty caring guy in over his head in his dealings with Harrelson.      Affleck is lean, wounded, and defiant, not quite able to express exactly how or why Iraq changed him for the worse.     He reminded me of Robert DeNiro's character in The Deer Hunter, except he is able to fistfight. 

Out Of The Furnace could've been a decent film.    It has strong actors who have been better in other movies and will be better again.     But it's too meandering and slow to create any dramatic momentum and by the end we don't care enough.