This week at the movies, we’ve got just one wide release: Out of the Furnace, a blue-collar crime thriller starring Christian Bale and Woody Harrelson. What do the critics have to say?
Gritty, moody, and populated by a cast of A-listers, Out of the Furnace promises a higher class of pulp than your average vengeance thriller. But critics say that while the actors imbue their characters with heft, they’re stuck with an uneven script that serves up many fine moments but fails to fully cohere. Bale stars as Russell, a steel worker whose brother Rodney (Casey Affleck) has just come home from Iraq. But when Rodney disappears after falling in with a local criminal organization, Russell goes looking for him — a search that leads him to Harlan (Woody Harrelson), the gang’s brutal ringleader. The pundits say that Out of the Furnace is raw and atmospheric, but it’s inconsistently paced and occasionally melodramatic. (Check out this week’s Total Recall, in which we count down Bale’s best-reviewed films.)
The Coen brothers‘ Inside Llewyn Davis, starring Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan in a dramedy about a troubled singer trying to make it in the early 1960s Greenwich Village folk scene, is Certified Fresh at 95 percent (check out executive music producer T Bone Burnett’s Five Favorite Soundtracks).
White Reindeer, a comedy about a suburban woman who bonds with the stripper her late husband was having an affair with, is at 94 percent (check out director Zach Clark’s Five Favorite films here).
Ulrich Seidl‘s Paradise: Hope, a drama about a 13-year-old who finds love at a camp for overweight teenagers, is at 90 percent.
Lenny Cooke, a documentary about the rise and fall of a celebrated high school basketball star, is at 87 percent.
S#x Acts, a drama about a high school student who is sexually exploited by a group of classmates, is at 67 percent.
Adventures of the Penguin King 3D, a documentary about the mating cycle of penguins, is at 50 percent.
Swerve, a thriller about a man who gets caught up in a deadly situation after discovering a briefcase full of money at the scene of a car wreck, is at 43 percent.
Crave, starring Ron Perlman and Edward Furlong in a psychological thriller about a freelance photographer profoundly affected by the urban violence around him, is at 38 percent.
The Last Days On Mars, starring Liev Schreiber and Matt Dillon in a sci-fi horror film about a group of astronauts who discover a dangerous life form on the red planet, is at 24 percent.
Twice Born, starring Penelope Cruz and Emile Hirsch in a drama about a love affair during the Bosnian war, is at 25 percent.
Caught in the Web, a drama about a young woman who becomes the target of internet vigilantes after a video of her misdeeds goes viral, is at zero percent.
