Starring: Christian Bale, Casey Affleck and Woody Harrelson
Directed by: Scott Cooper
Rated: R
Running time: 1 hour 56 mins
Relativity Media
Our Score: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Take a group of talented actors, add an unbelievable script and a sophomore director and what do you get?
In a blue collar town located somewhere in Pennsylvania, the Baze brothers go about their business. Older brother Russell (Bale) works at the local steel mill, trying to make a good life for himself and his girlfriend (Zoe Saldana). He also works a lot of overtime to help pay the debts of his troubled younger brother, Rodney (Affleck). A victim of the U.S. Army’s “stop-loss” policy, Rodney is about to head back to Iraq for his fourth tour. An unfortunate accident lands Russell in prison. When he comes home he finds his girlfriend has moved on, his father has died and that Rodney has been trying to earn money by engaging in underground bare knuckle fights. When Rodney disappears one night, Russell takes it upon himself to find him.
I just summarized the film in nine sentences. Sadly, to get to the main points of the story director Cooper and his co-writer, Brad Ingelsby, have created so many unnecessary and incredulous scenes that, despite a top notch cast, you really don’t care what happens to any of them. Woody Harrelson is a bad ass. How do we know that? Because when we meet him he’s forcing a hot dog down a woman’s throat at the drive in. Why is Russell in jail? Because after having ONE DRINK he is involved in an auto accident with a car that backed into the street with no lights on, killing a young boy who was neither buckled in or in a safety seat. Yet it’s his fault? But if you don’t put Russell in prison you can’t see that he’s also a bad ass, kicking the butts of two cons that hassle him one day, apparently for no other reason than to see that Russell is tough. There is no exposition or explanation of time. One day Rodney is in his fatigues, the next he has a full beard.
If I haven’t scared you off yet, let me take this time to praise a cast that does an admirable job considering the material they were given. Bale continues to grow and change as an actor, leaving Bruce Wayne behind to take some incredibly interesting supporting roles. Affleck is very good as a young man whose many tours on the battlefield are starting to affect him. As the drug selling, fight fixing Harlan DeGroat, Harrelson is positively frightening. Add to the mix such talents as Sam Sheppard, Forrest Whitaker and Willem Dafoe, and you’ll realize that every actor I’ve mentioned in this paragraph are Oscar nominees who deserve better than an under-cooked screenplay. They should throw this one back into the furnace!