The credits are still rolling on the screen in front of me
and Eddie Vedder is belting out refrains of “Release Me.” For the past two
hours I have been lost in a world of drugs, underground fighting, and the
deepest tests of the thickness of blood and brotherhood. Scott Cooper’s film
“Out of the Furnace” takes you on an unexpected journey into the heart of
loyalty, grace and revenge asking throughout its entirety hard questions about
the messy business of justice and the existence of righteous anger.
Despite the fact that the film’s setting is located in the
heartland of steel and rust, the blue-collar workers and drug-dealing
Appalachians become a mirror for anyone with enough humility to see themselves
in their faces. As the Baze brothers search for an escape from their own
haunted pasts we come to realize that their story differs from our own in the
details only. Their blazing anger in the face of loss and the unfairness of
life, the constant insanity of foreign war, and the uneven hand of justice
forces each of us to glance into the depth of our own hearts in order to
confront a sense of powerless in the face of an increasingly evil world that we
all feel ill equipped to defeat.
Amidst the smoke of dimly-lit bars and rusted warehouses Russell
Baze (Christian Bale), the older brother, emerges as a Christ-figure whose best
attempts to rescue and protect those he loves the most are repeatedly thwarted
by the injustice of life and Harlen DeGroat (Woody Harrelson), the Devil incarnate.
In the end it is only through violence, the shedding of blood and the taking of
life that the cycle of human oppression ends.
In many ways similar to the crucifixion of Christ, the
screen goes black handing the audience the ultimate paradox of murder and
justice, betrayal and redemption and hatred and love. There is salvation, but
at a price no one could afford to pay. There is rescue, but we all have blood
on our hands.
