(NECN) - The last time moviegoers saw Christian Bale on the big screen, he was wrapping up his stint as the Caped Crusader in Christopher Nolan's conclusion to his Batman trilogy, "The Dark Knight Rises."
This December, we get a double dose of Bale in theaters with the much-ballyhooed "American Hustle" and our featured film this week, "Out of the Furnace."
Bale is Russell, a steel worker in the bleak, swiftly-eroding blue collar town of Braddock, Pa., punching the clock, quietly paying off the mountain of debt rung up by his gambling-addict brother Rodney, a war-affected fountain of rage played by a fantastic Casey Affleck.
In an effort to settle his financial score, Rodney turns to a backwoods, drug-running thug - a flat-out frightening Woody Harrelson - with Rodney unleashing his fists of fury in Harrelson's frontier fight club.
Things don't end so well for Rodney and that brings Bale back into the picture as Rodney's big bro turns crime fighter, setting his sights on taking down Harrelson's malevolent Appalachian empire.
"Out of the Furnace" is gritty stuff, an intense and immersive tale, taking us inside a crumbling, corroding working class America, stylishly directed by Scott Cooper of "Crazy Heart" fame, anchored by strong performances from Bale, Affleck and Harrelson, not to mention Willem Defoe, Zoe Saldana, Forrest Whitaker and Sam Shepard.
A late-season surprise, "Out of the Furnace" lights up a Final Cut score of 90 percent.
Tags: Christian Bale, Erick Weber, The Final Cut, Out of the Furnace
0 comments:
Post a Comment