The "rust belt" - the informal description for a postindustrial steel region referring to economic decline, population loss and urban decay due to the shrinking of its once powerful industrial sector. Previously it was known as the industrial heartland of America and includes parts of states such as New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and New Jersey. Those are some of the areas depicted in this movie.
While it isn't a pretty movie with a pleasing story, it is filled with fine performances and depicts a difficult way of life that is close to a reality for many in the rust belt.
Woody Harrelson is a fine versatile actor, seeming best when his character is mean and dastardly. That is what he is here, as backwoods gambler and drug lord Harlan DeGroat. In an early scene when someone asks "Do you have a problem with me?", his reply is quick and concise, "I have a problem with everybody." Indeed we find out that he does.
The other person in that scene is Christian Bale as Russell Baze. He is the older of two sons of a sickly steelworker, basically bent on doing the right things and working hard, even if it is a menial existence. But he rather innocently gets into trouble when, driving home after an associate offered him a drink, he rams another vehicle entering the highway and he ends up in prison for what appears to be a few months, maybe a year.
Casey Affleck is his younger brother Rodney Baze Jr., not at all like their father, and after a stint in the Army and fighting in Iraq is determined to NOT follow in the footsteps of his dad and his brother. This gets him into some shady activities, and worst of all gets him involved with DeGroat.
All the other characters end up being pawns to the bigger story and it involves the inevitable encounter and showdown between DeGroat and Russell Baze. It gets quite intense.
It is a good movie about a difficult way of life, not everyone will enjoy watching it. But after I started I couldn't stop until the end.
SPOILERS: DeGroat has no mercy and gives no ground, when he is not repaid some debts he and his men simply kill the two men, one being Rodney. Eventually a hunter's dog digs up the body in a shallow grave near DeGroat's hangouts and Russell sets his sights on getting even. DeGroat does not know that Russell is the brother of the man he killed, and when Russell hunts him down gets the upper hand with his high powered hunting rifle. The ending is somewhat ambiguous, Russell has killed DeGroat in a field near the closed-down steel mill with the local sheriff as a witness, but the last scene has Russell sitting by himself at a table. Perhaps he got off without charges because everyone knew justice had been served, if unconventionally.
While it isn't a pretty movie with a pleasing story, it is filled with fine performances and depicts a difficult way of life that is close to a reality for many in the rust belt.
Woody Harrelson is a fine versatile actor, seeming best when his character is mean and dastardly. That is what he is here, as backwoods gambler and drug lord Harlan DeGroat. In an early scene when someone asks "Do you have a problem with me?", his reply is quick and concise, "I have a problem with everybody." Indeed we find out that he does.
The other person in that scene is Christian Bale as Russell Baze. He is the older of two sons of a sickly steelworker, basically bent on doing the right things and working hard, even if it is a menial existence. But he rather innocently gets into trouble when, driving home after an associate offered him a drink, he rams another vehicle entering the highway and he ends up in prison for what appears to be a few months, maybe a year.
Casey Affleck is his younger brother Rodney Baze Jr., not at all like their father, and after a stint in the Army and fighting in Iraq is determined to NOT follow in the footsteps of his dad and his brother. This gets him into some shady activities, and worst of all gets him involved with DeGroat.
All the other characters end up being pawns to the bigger story and it involves the inevitable encounter and showdown between DeGroat and Russell Baze. It gets quite intense.
It is a good movie about a difficult way of life, not everyone will enjoy watching it. But after I started I couldn't stop until the end.
SPOILERS: DeGroat has no mercy and gives no ground, when he is not repaid some debts he and his men simply kill the two men, one being Rodney. Eventually a hunter's dog digs up the body in a shallow grave near DeGroat's hangouts and Russell sets his sights on getting even. DeGroat does not know that Russell is the brother of the man he killed, and when Russell hunts him down gets the upper hand with his high powered hunting rifle. The ending is somewhat ambiguous, Russell has killed DeGroat in a field near the closed-down steel mill with the local sheriff as a witness, but the last scene has Russell sitting by himself at a table. Perhaps he got off without charges because everyone knew justice had been served, if unconventionally.