Out of the Furnace

Out of the Furnace (2013) is set in a steel town in Pennsylvania. One brother works at the mill; the other is back from Iraq, cannot find work, and takes illegal fights to clear his debts. He disappears after one of them and his brother goes looking. The best thing in it is the economics. The mill is closing, the town is emptying, and every decision the characters make comes out of that contraction; the film presents violence not as a choice but as the absence of one. Scott Cooper directed. Christian Bale plays the older brother, Casey Affleck the younger, and Woody Harrelson the head of a criminal circle in the mountains. Willem Dafoe, Forest Whitaker and Sam Shepard are also in it. It ended up in court. Members of the Ramapough Lenape Nation in New Jersey sued, arguing the criminal group in the film represented their community and portrayed them as criminals. The case was ultimately dismissed, but how the production used the community's name remained contentious. It runs 116 minutes. Good for: American rural drama, slow revenge, and a strong ensemble. Less good for: the violence is heavy and the fights are graphic. The pace is very slow and the plot is thin. Harrelson's character is written as a one dimensional villain, which works against the film's social argument.