Did you ever have a boss who did budgets — and thought spreadsheets were all that mattered? Or who felt the most got done at meetings — and inevitably promoted the employees who loyally showed up?
It's no different in Hollywood.
People value their own strengths — and fall back on them once they get a new job. Screenwriters who become directors emphasize story and character; former cinematographers cling to images; former editors, action and pace. And actors?
Actors who end up directing other actors — well, they love giving actors lots of "moments."
Scott Cooper used to be an actor, and then he got behind the camera and made "Crazy Heart," with Jeff Bridges. Now he's followed it up with "Out of the Furnace," and it's got quite a cast — Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson, Willem Dafoe, Sam Shepard, Forest Whitaker and, diluting the testosterone overload a bit, Zoe Saldana.
But while the movie's sure got a lot of good moments, I'm not sure they add up to a good movie.
The picture is set mostly in the Pennsylvania rust-belt town of Braddock, and partly in New Jersey's Ramapo Mountains which, we're told often, are full of crazy, criminal "inbreds." Meth is a big staple there, it seems. So are illegal bare-knuckle bouts.
It's an ugly world, but there's money, and it pulls in Dafoe and Affleck, who head up into the hills on some business. Then things go really, really wrong, thanks to natural-born crazy Harrelson. And so it's time for Bale and Shepard to put things right.
"Out of the Furnace" is a handsome-looking movie — Cooper has some wonderful shots of gorgeously decrepit steel mills, and extravagantly dilapidated houses — but I think there was a line in the budget for "pretense, misc." Or there should have been.
There is, for example, a long, exaggeratedly crosscut sequence that parallels Affleck going up for a fight with Bale and Shepard going after a deer. Plenty of tattoos — rosaries, military insignias, obscenities — that tell you exactly what to think about a character. Lots of closeups of people staring off into space.
And, since Cooper is an actor, his movie is all about making room for acting. Both Bale and Affleck get some showy, shouting scenes where they get to break things or bellow; as a police chief, Whitaker tries a new, gruff voice. Doing the most scene-study work is Harrelson, who plays a sadistic, woman-beating psycho.
Of course, out of all these melodramatic performances, it's the quietest one that really connects — Shepard's taciturn, deer-hunting old uncle. His character disappears towards the movie's end, and that's too bad; after this, and "Mud," it's clear that if you ever got into real trouble, Shepard is the sort of man you'd want at your back.
But as overly appreciative as Cooper is of actors (and, a little too often, of Acting with a capital A), and as beautifully as "Out of the Furnace" is shot, it still plays like a mostly prettied-up programmer — well cast and budgeted to be sure, but obvious and unsurprising, and not that different from any number of cheaper, simpler films.
For fans who need a bit of gloss to justify their thrills — who need some self-conscious art to make them feel they're watching something serious and important and Oscar-worthy, instead of just thrilling and violent and entertaining — "Out of the Furnace" may fit the bill.
But somehow, a little movie like "Homefront" feels a lot more honest — about what it is, who it's for and how it delivers.
Ratings note: The film contains violence, substance abuse and strong language.
'Out of the Furnace' (R) Relativity (116 min.)
Directed by Scott Cooper. With Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson. Now playing in New York; opens in New Jersey on Friday.
★ ★ ★ ½
FOLLOW FILM CRITIC STEPHEN WHITTY ONLINE
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