'Out of the Furnace' Burns Brightly

I didn't know this, but apparently the weekend after Thanksgiving is not particularly productive for the North American box office. Since it's usually such a slow weekend, movies released at this time tend to be few, with maybe one new release opening up and often failing to garner an audience when it does. Two years ago, it was the terrible The Warriors Way that was sacrificed to an early grave, while last year saw the critically praised but commercially panned Killing Them Softly (which I also consummately hated) diffuse all potential Oscar talk for Brad Pitt in 2012. This year, the sole national release for this weekend is Out of the Furnace, Scott Cooper's directorial followup to 2009's well-received country-singing Crazy Heart, a title many considered a decent pick for Academy Award potential. Does this mediocre release date (which guaranteed an early box office finish behind Frozen and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) mean that the studios and their celebrity producers (Ridley Scott and Leonardo DiCaprio, who had originally been labeled as director and actor) believe their film doesn't deserve that much faith?

A bit of fun before all the drama begins.

Out of the Furnace is a revenge thriller that pits Russell Baze (Academy Award-winner Christian Bale) - a normal, factory-working good man in Braddock, PA - against lowlife criminal and overall scumbag Harlan DeGroat (Woody Harrelson), an Appalachian hustler who is suspected of being responsible for the disappearance of Russell's brother Rodney (Casey Affleck). With there being only so much the law can do, Russell feels he is the only man who can find and punish the man responsible for separating him from his brother.

Gladiator gets a sequel 2000 years in the making.

This movie has two major strengths going for it: Cooper, and his amazing cast. As a sophomore director, Cooper has a lot to live up to, especially with praise for Crazy Heart being as great as it was. He has a natural aptitude for storytelling, and that's especially good when the story he actually tells differs in respects to what the trailers had brought a potential audience to expect. Now, it's not that the trailers lied, per se, but they do diverge quite widely from the tale Cooper actually brings to us. Considering how many trailers essentially give away the story of their respective titles, that Out of the Furnace surprises us with its twists and turns is just as much a key to victory as Cooper's overall talent. The director has a talent for capturing the perfect shot, and the imagery he evokes is that of a big-budget Winter's Bone due to its Appalachian, Rust Belt locale and depressed economic setting. He makes great use of his locale to establish his story (which he re-wrote from a script by Brad Ingelsby), and despite the dangers of a slow-burning plot (Killing Them Softly was terribly slow, to the point of boredom), the movie is never dull, keeping you entranced as you anxiously wait to see what happens next.

He's really going for that Oscar this year.

And as I mentioned, Cooper gets a huge boost from his all-star cast, especially concerning the (surprisingly limited) interplay between Bale and Harrelson. Harrelson's Harlan is a monster from the word go, and the film more than establishes him as a dangerous, evil human being (and setting the foundations for Best Supporting Actor nods, perhaps), more than worthy for a movie of this style. Meanwhile, Bale's Russell takes a lot longer to set up, while never losing sight of the idea that he is the epitome of good. That building of his character was necessary to keep Russell from stagnating, and despite some threats of cliche, Bale reminds everybody of the monumental talent he really is. Affleck meanwhile quietly puts forth one of his best performances, that of a youth troubled by war and falling into the trappings of debt and depression. Affleck has always been a good (sometimes better than big brother Ben) actor, but his turn in Furnace easily takes the top prize. Zoe Saldana also excels, though I found myself wishing they'd used her a bit more. After all, there's no doubt in my mind that one day this young talent will earn Academy Award nominations, and perhaps walk away with one as well. This was an excellent display of her skills (the scene with Bale on the footbridge is emotionally devastating) and she's absolutely destined for bigger things than Star Trek and Colombiana. Forest Whitaker, Sam Shepard and Willem Dafoe round out a fully engaging cast, one that really makes the best of their given material.

Spoiler: this is the best scene in the movie.

And that's a good thing, because the material they have to work with is... "meh". Cooper supposedly had his own upbringing in Appalachia in mind when he was retooling Ingelsby's screenplay, but the result is a LOT of universally cliched ideas. The major and minor themes - poverty, frontier justice, social treatment of combat veterans, legal jurisdiction battles, loneliness, emotional trauma, brotherhood - have been done before, in essentially this same format. No matter how good the actors are (and they are spectacular!), Cooper can't quite compel his movie to be more unique than it actually is. There were also some questionable decisions made for the final cut, as some scenes ran a little over-long and contained some questionably redundant material (I mean seriously, how many times to we need to be reminded that Russell is a good man?). But while the director really should have let someone else come in and tinker with his relatively disappointing script, he's a talented-enough artist to somewhat overcome those hurdles, while trusting his cast to do the heavy lifting in a tale that doesn't lack for suspense and authentic emotional toil.

Now, who's up for playing Old Yeller?

There's a surprisingly long setup, as the audience soon becomes fully accustomed to the slow burn that takes up the first 90 minutes of Out of the Furnace. That makes the swift final act a complete surprise, as Cooper had perfectly positioned his pawns for a quick checkmate. But despite feeling a little rushed, the movie actually benefits from this change of pace, and it actually makes for quite the exciting and appropriate conclusion to the tale. Still, it (and his minor, newbie-level mistakes) keeps his final product from becoming the awards juggernaut it ABSOLUTELY had the potential to be. Out of the Furnace is still tons better than the fare that usually comes out the weekend after Thanksgiving, and if you find yourself with a couple of hours to spend before the year's end, you can do a whole lot worse than giving Scott Cooper's latest effort a shot. Great actors, an up-and-coming director and not one boring moment make for a couple hours of sheer quality entertainment.

Movie Monday: ParaNorman

Looking for the best animated film of the year? Look no further than ParNorman, the latest stop-motion picture by Laika, the company behind Coraline. In fact, this is the #4 movie for 2012, and for good reason.

In the small Massachusetts town of Blithe Hollow, Norman Babcock is a withdrawn, shy boy who just happens to be able to talk to the spirits of the dead. It has caused friction with his parents, his sister, and the kids at school, many of whom bully him over his "weirdness". But one person does not think Norman is strange. He gives Norman the task of protecting the town from a witch's curse, one that threatens to raise the dead unless countered by Norman's ability. For the first time in his life, he will have the chance to prove his detractors wrong and become the hero he's destined to be.

ParaNorman is directed by Sam Fell and Chris Butler, and features the voices of Kodi Smit-McPhee, Tucker Albrizzi, Anna Kendrick, Casey Affleck, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Leslie Mann, Jeff Garlin, Elaine Stritch, Bernard Hill, and John Goodman.

Click here for the complete review on Open Letters Monthly.

The Return of Eddie Murphy

Okay, I'm officially sick of class warfare as a film story theme in 2011. Between the battles of rich teams vs. small teams (Moneyball) and the far more simple upper class vs. poverty (In Time, The Rum Diary), it seems like all Hollywood wants to tell us is that the rich are all out to take every cent the rest of us have hidden in our mattresses. Well, I'm calling bullshit on this. Just because we're going through a rough economic time and legitimate criminals like Bernie Madoff are making off with the hard-earned finances of the lower classes doesn't mean I want to see this in my escapist film-going trips. That said, I was actually kind of looking forward to Tower Heist when it came out this past weekend, a statement that seems to go against my usual dislike of anything involving Ben Stiller or director Brett Ratner. While I at first dismissed Tower Heist as a silly action comedy in the same vein as Ratner's usual unwatchable fare, multiple trailer viewings (I see a LOT of movies, if you haven't gathered by now) steadily wore down my resolve, as I managed to find some details that I liked. Besides Stiller, the cast actually boasted a group of strong character actors, with Tea Leoni, Matthew Broderick, Casey Affleck, Michael Pena, Alan Alda and Gabourey Sidibe surely doing most of the film's heavy lifting. But the biggest thing to finally draw me in was the appearance of Eddie Murphy in a lead role. Long decried as a Hollywood has-been following a very brutal succession of failures since his peak in the 80's and early '90's, one often forgets that despite his insanely high contract demands, he can actually be a charming and effective performer when called upon. The trailers made a good point of this, and so while other films demanded my attention first, I knew that eventually I would go to the theaters to see whether the performers could pull what was sure to be a brainless caper out of the mire in which most Ratner films reside.

The biggest star in this scene? Steve McQueen's car.

Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller) is the building manager of New York City's most decadent condominium tower. Home to the most rich and famous, the building gets an unwelcome bit of news when their richest resident, investment banker Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda) is arrested on financial fraud. Worse, Shaw had been made responsible for the pensions of the working class crew of the building, meaning that all of the clerks, doormen, maids and maintenance staff have lost most of their life savings. Feeling betrayed, Josh and a small group of disgruntled fellow employees hire on his childhood associate and petty criminal Slide (Eddie Murphy) to help rob Shaw for all he's worth. Together, they must infiltrate a building with state-of-the-art security, confound the FBI agents in charge of keeping Shaw on house arrest, and escape with enough to help their beleaguered cohorts while avoiding being caught themselves.

The first and likely only time you'll see Alan Alda in handcuffs

From a story standpoint, Tower Heist is certainly guilty of being incredibly stupid. The simple truth is that this band of misfits and malcontents having any real shot at success in their endeavor should have been treated as pure folly. Ratner's complete inability to treat the story with anything akin to logic is a staple of his work, and a big reason why I haven't enjoyed any of his films besides Red Dragon in 2002. And yet another of Ratner's usual strategies - wall-to-wall action - is conspicuously absent, as the first half hour of the film is a dull limp through character introductions and plot exposition. Tower Heist does pick up in the middle act, thanks especially to the introduction of Murphy, but we'll get to his involvement later on. Even then there is much kept from the audience for sake of suspense, but when the focus on the main characters couldn't have reasonably hidden these elements, the whole thing takes on an even more unbelievable tone. The film's finale succeeds in failure only; the end is wrapped up a little too tightly and leaves far too much to our own conjecture. It makes absolutely no sense, and that's what ultimately drowns Tower Heist's decent ideas.

Murphy pulls out his Cheshire Cat impression

Like the story, Tower Heist's cast and acting is uneven and under-powered. As a departure from much of his career, Ben Stiller plays the straight man, and the overly-serious tone he carries doesn't suit his usual comedic persona. Using his usual stress and aggression to some effect, he looks to be either over-matched or more likely uninspired in the material given him. I would say that he deserves better, but to be honest I can't remember the last time I actually liked him in any movie. Murphy meanwhile is a revelation. Charming and charismatic, Eddie Murphy manages to reach back to his early career days and pull out one of his better performances, which is sadly relegated to second tier status as even when he is finally introduced to us he is underutilized. This is especially poor because he ends up being the most entertaining element of Tower Heist; when he is on the screen, it is the center of the universe. When he isn't, Tower Heist is just a silly caper film  fronted by an unfunny Stiller. The support cast offers some help, though not enough to make a real difference. Alda is as always the consummate professional, and every scene with him is raised just a bit by his mere presence, no matter his actual contribution. Gabourey Sidibe impresses again, the Precious star appearing as a Jamaican maid with an attitude and a talent for safecracking. Sidibe is also underused, and her scenes are second only to Murphy in quality. Tea Leoni proves to be as sultry and talented as she ever was in the past, appearing as a sensual FBI agent with a thing for Josh. It's after that however that the talent takes a downturn. Michael Pena is once again misused as an honest but less than cerebral maintenance technician, and Matthew Broderick stretches not one whit creatively as a bumbling, wishy-washy former tenant of the Tower. Worst of the bunch is Casey Affleck as Josh's brother-in-law, a desk clerk who is bad at his job but desperate for the money because of his pregnant wife. Completely flat and uninteresting, Affleck needed a foil to play off of (such as Oceans 11's Scott Caan) to become more interesting. Lacking that, Affleck merely moves from scene to scene, showing none of the talent or charisma that we've seen in his bigger roles the past decade.

Hey, look! There goes our credibility!

If the story had focused more on Murphy's criminal Slide and given more attention to delivering the laughs, Tower Heist would have been a pretty good film. Instead what we get barely breaks even with usual Brett Ratner fare, as an uninspired cast fails to do much more than draw out the inevitable, and the horrible finish simply put a cap on what was barely worth seeing in the first place. If you REALLY want to see Eddie Murphy in his prime, this might be worth a DVD rental in a few months. Of course, if you're going to visit the video store ANYWAY, you'd probably be better off picking up any of his Beverly Hills Cop films instead. That's right; even Beverly Hills Cop III. Tower Heist doesn't even beat THAT.