Out of the Furnace 2013

Christy Lemire, ChristyLemire.com: A down-and-dirty revenge picture whose classy cast elevates it above its gritty, grimy trappings. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: We're supposed to take this more seriously because it takes itself more seriously. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: "Out of the Furnace" offers a bleak vision of America's rural economic woes before flattening out into a routine thriller about good men doing bad things. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Much longer on style and belligerence than actual substance. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Mr. Bale, ever the brilliantly inward performer, makes Russell sympathetic with small strokes. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: You know where it's going, but the actors make the trip worth taking. Read more

Scott Foundas, Variety: A starkly powerful drama that in some ways feels like an Iraq-era bookend to The Deer Hunter. Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: Out Of The Furnace turns out to be a predictable, very ordinary retribution story, propped up by slumming A-listers and a gritty veneer of Rust Belt desperation. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: "Out of the Furnace" begins to resemble one of those pedestrian revenge thrillers with really good acting. Read more

Jake Coyle, Associated Press: ''Out of the Furnace'' is an earnestly crafted, passionately acted working-class drama rusted over by its noble intentions of steel-town sympathizing. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: The macho drama is nicely drawn for most of the movie, with a genuine sense of hard times in millennial America, though Cooper lets it drift into the sort of revenge plot that propels innumerable action movies. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: "Out of the Furnace" is a lot of movie, a lot of it good and pungent. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: This is fire-breathing melodrama masquerading as social commentary. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: Grimy and unapologetically melodramatic, Furnace pounds out a steady beat of pulp, violence and possible redemption among folks who have seen better days. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: Yes it has a fine cast, and all do good work. But this overly obvious film about the downward spiral lives of lower-class brothers barely scraping by in life goes through mostly expected motions. Read more

Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com: It has everything a viewer would expect when Hollywood goes blue-collar...But Furnace is saved by a couple of surprises and mostly by the performances from its big-ticket cast. Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: It's Bale, and his almost biblical quest for justice, who burns his way into your soul. Read more

Jordan Hoffman, Film.com: A dull, seen-it-a-million-times story of small time hoods getting in too deep with maniac baddies. Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: This is a movie that might have been a great drama at four hours with a more ambitious script and a director with a vision or something to say. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: A solid, well-acted tale about how the bad steps in when jobs fall away in the Rust Belt. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: "Out of the Furnace" is rich in talent used wisely. Woody Harrelson, Zoe Saldana, Willem Dafoe, Forest Whitaker and Sam Shepard help to create a sinewy portrait of a dying way of life. Read more

Tony Hicks, San Jose Mercury News: Ultimately, there just isn't enough of a story to support all that talent on screen. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: Out of the Furnace is a boozy, searing portrait of disenfranchised people trying - and not always succeeding - to eke out an existence. But the movie celebrates their struggle and makes you share their scalding pain, like molten steel on bare flesh. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: A somewhat formulaic Rust Belt noir, but Bale delivers a visceral, go-for-broke performance as a man who puts family above the law. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: The movie has an undeniable, dour force, but it's basically conventional macho filmmaking, and it's extremely violent. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: While the movie's sure got a lot of good moments, I'm not sure they add up to a good movie. Read more

Mark Jenkins, NPR: [An] unusually deliberate but otherwise predictable drama. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: "Out of the Furnace" gets under your skin. Bale's commitment etches a raw portrait of stagnation and sadness. Affleck is heartbreakingly feral, and Dafoe, Harrelson and Whitaker provide solid support. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: It's a heavy, solemn tale of blood ties that turns into a melodramatic gusher filled with abstractions about masculinity, America and violence, but brought to specific, exciting life by Christian Bale, Casey Affleck and Woody Harrelson. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Although Out of the Furnace takes place just a few years back in this new millennium, Scott Cooper's solemn, blood-soaked drama about brothers and broken dreams feels like it's of some different, ancient time. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Features some nice performances and is deliciously atmospheric but it never achieves its goal of being a compelling meditation about how the economic erosion of a community influences the lives of those trapped within it. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: One of the best movies I've seen this year. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: What gives the movie its heat is the acting. [Casey] Affleck, his eyes pools of pain, is outstanding. His scenes with [Christian] Bale, all coiled intensity ready to spring, are electric. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: A long, grim exercise in garden-variety pointlessness, disguised as nihilism. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: It's grim, solid suspense craftsmanship, nothing more. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: This supposed slice of life is so half-baked it's poisonous. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: If the downbeat plot is depressingly familiar, it's partly salvaged by the quality of the performances. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Good actors really earn their pay when they have to negotiate bad scripts. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: Yes, the working class is bearing the brunt of an inequitable economic system, and yes, the treatment of our returning soldiers from the last decade of war has been disgraceful, but the film has nothing of substance say about any of this. Read more

Cath Clarke, Time Out: Aims for Bruce Springsteen with its blue-collar big themes and stadium-rock emotion but ends up as a bandana-wearing cliche. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Out of the Furnace goes beyond the edge of poetic despair into stridency. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Bale gives one of his best performances, and Harrelson and Affleck are completely captivating. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Village Voice: The picture is earnest to a fault, coming off like an exploration of how "the little people" live, so carefully written that it veritably trumpets how remote it is from the grittiness of its subject matter. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Even when it descends into self-consciousness in a lurid final act, "Out of the Furnace" effectively brings viewers into a space where whatever people had to lose was either squandered or stolen. Read more