30th Jan2014

Out of the Furnace – Film

by timbaros

images-86Out of the Furnace stars one of the hottest actors in the business today – Christian Bale. It is a film produced by Leonardo DiCaprio and Ridley Scott, among others, and it also stars Oscar-winning actors Forest Whitaker and Willem Dafoe, and Oscar-nominated actors Woody Harrelson, Cassey Affleckand Sam Shepard, unfortunately, the film just does not work.

Bale is Russell Baze (not a very good name for a main character), he works in the local steel mill (in a dark, polluted town somewhere in Pennsylvania). His father is near death, watched over by Russell’s younger brother Rodney Baze Jr. (Affleck), back home and physically and mentally scared from serving time in the military. One evening after visiting his father and heading back home to his wife Lena (Zoe Saldana), he crashes into a car and kills its two occupants. He is sent to prison (which happens too suddenly, there is no trial – so the movie takes us directly from the car crash to Russell being in prison). It is not clear how long he is in prison for, but he is there long enough to miss his father’s funeral. Also, his wife has left him for the local police chief (Whitaker – who doesn’t have much to do in this film).
Having no choice but to move back into his father’s house, he learns that his brother is involved in illegal fighting and also owes local man John Petty (Dafoe) a lot of money. Russell advises his brother to work in the mill, to stay clean, to make their dead father proud. But Rodney has a lot of anger, hostility, and aggression, so it appears that he needs to fight. He also needs to repay Petty, and while Russell tries to help out paying some money towards the loan, Rodney goes ahead with one final fight. Unbeknownst to Rodney, Petty also owes money to Harlan DeGroat (Harrelson), a local drug dealer who, with his thugs and addicts, have some kind of control of the local area. For reasons not very clear, Petty tells Rodney to throw the fight, which he does, and it has bad implications for both men. It is up to Russell to seek revenge and get even, leading to a very predictable showdown with DeGroat.
With so much talent on board, you would think that Out of the Furnace would and could be a contender for awards, but unfortunately it is quite the opposite. The script is too predictable, there seems to be chunks of scenes that are missing, the main characters are given very strange names (Harlan DeGroat? Russell Baze?) and the final scene, the showdown, is not dramatic at all. It could’ve been a better film because in its development stage it had DiCaprio attached to star and Scott attached to direct. Director and writer Scott Cooper directed Jeff Bridges to his Oscar-winning performance in 2009’s Crazy Heart, however, for Out of the Furnace, it seems like he called in sick a few times during shooting. And his script, written with Brad Ingelsby, is frustrating and not comprehensive. While the cinematography and landscape of rural Pennsylvania is in line with the plot of the film (dark, moody), and the performances are what you would expect from the caliber of actors involved, overall Out of the Furnace is literally dead on arrival.

 

Category : Film
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15th Nov2013

The Counsellor – Film

by timbaros
images-23Michael Fassbender. Penelope Cruz. Cameron Diaz. Javier Bardem. Brad Pitt. These are the stars of the new film The Counsellor, a film that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
The Counsellor, I think, was about a man (Fassbender) who happens to be, and known only as The Counsellor (lawyer), who gets involved in some sort of drug operation. Cruz plays his wife, Lara, a very beautiful but naive woman. They have just gotten engaged after the Counsellor goes to Amsterdam to buy Lara a very expensive engagement ring. Is this why he gets involved in the drug world? To pay for the ring? It is not clear. Then we have power couple and Nightclub owner Reiner (Bardem) and his girlfriend Malkina (Diaz), who appear to be the ring leaders of the drug operation that the Counsellor gets involved in. This happens when The Counsellor meets Reiner at a party who tells him about an investment where he could make a lot of money. It is a few minutes after that we realize the investment involves a huge shipment of cocaine. The Counsellor is seduced by this proposal and soon enough gets involved. Meanwhile, one his clients, Ruth (a very good Rosie Perez), who is trial for murder, has some sort of connection to the drug underworld, but it is not clear how and to what extent. Ruth has a son, who goes by the name ‘The Green Hornet’, and he is also connected somehow to the shipment of cocaine, but we are not told how he is connected.
Anyway, as the movie confusingly continues, a man with no name suddenly appears to attempt to steal the cocaine. He stretches a wire across a road to enable him to kill the person who will be driving by on a motorcycle. How he knows that the next vehicle coming down the road is the person he wants to kill is not made clear. The motorcycle rider, who we can assume is ‘The Green Hornet,’ rides right into the wire, which beheads him, and the man removes the helmut from the dismembered head, and takes something from it. What does he take? No idea.
All of a sudden a character by the name of Westray (Pitt) shows up. Him and The Counsellor appear to know each other, but we are not told how they know each other. The scenes between Westray and The Counsellor are tense, but again, it is not very clear how Westray fits into the movie, only perhaps to warn The Counsellor about the deal. There is absolutely no reason why this character is needed in the film, as Pitt has no other scenes in the film.
The Counsellor continues with Reiner advising The Counsellor that there has been a problem with the shipment of cocaine and that he needs to watch his back. The Counsellor, concerned about Lara’s fate, tells her to get out of town. They agree to meet in Boise, Idaho, however, she never makes it. She is kidnapped by a gang, but who does the gang work for? We are not told. The Counsellor waits for her in Boise, she never turns up…he is extremely distraught and anxiously searches for her, until he contacts one of the drug lords who tells him that he has to live with the choices he has made. Huh? Back in Mexico, still searching for Lara, a package is slipped under his hotel room door. In it is a DVD with the word ‘Hola’ written on it. What is on the DVD? And why does the Counsellor break down at that point? Don’t know as whatever was on the DVD was not shown.
Am I giving too much away by saying that Reiner is murdered in cold blood, but by whom? and why?
This leaves Malkina as pretty much the last man (or in her case woman) standing. Did she mastermind some kind of drug theft right under the nose of her boyfriend Reiner? Did she have something to do with Lara’s disappearance? What is her connection to Westray? The Counsellor ends with her in a restaurant, speaking to what appears to be her banker, and they discuss what to do with the money. She also tells him that he too is expendable (huh?). End of film.
If the above description of the plot sounds confusing, it’s because The Counsellor is confusing. Ridley Scott directed, and his directing is all over the place. It doesn’t allow the movie to flow. The script was written by Cormac McCarthy (The Road), the first film script that he has written, and it shows. Some of the scenes don’t quite have any connection to other scenes, and the dialogue makes it hard to understand who is working with who and who is doublecrossing who. While some of the imagery is beautiful (two lions coming out of the backseat of Reiner’s car right after he’s been killed, beautiful scenes and imagery of the American southwest), The Counsellor as a movie just doesn’t work, with a star-studded cast but a less than stellar plot. Take my advice and go see Gravity, again.
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