This was a case where I was at a cineplex in a time slot, quickly scanning summaries to find something starting within 15-30 minutes. That narrowed my options considerably. I went with Out of the Furnace because of the big names, like Christian Bale and Willem DaFoe (I consider myself a fan of both).
Christian plays the antithesis of the American Psycho guy. He cares little for appearance (except he's handsome) and is not proud or loud. He's pretty much your Bruce Springsteen all American, somewhere close to New Jersey. But by now that's so retro / ethnic is to make it like National Geographic and Bridges of Madison County.
It's not that kind of love story (Bridges...) though, it's grim and violent. There's the more twisted younger brother, the one who ends up in Iraq, tour after tour and gets more and more bent out of shape. He's explosive and that sets it off in others. The world is too dangerous for the likes of young Rodney, who has already paid too high a price.
Given I'm an older man now, I practiced projecting on the old guy side kick as my avatar in the ring. You know how when you go to movies you pick a person... I shouldn't say that as if novels weren't offering the same thing. Any fiction. Any history as a subset of fiction. Fact is the fiction most agreed upon? I ramble.
The bad guy in this movie has aroused our ire right from the opening scene, where he behaves like an out of control bully. One wishes for Bruce Lee to jump out of the big screen and deal with him right then and there, but this is not a martial arts film.
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Operation Spaceship Earth
