last night's double feature: out of the furnace and the covenant

*SPOILER ALERT*

Out of the Furnace: (2013. dir: Scott Cooper) This revamp of the Deerhunter has smooth editing and an even smoother sound design, sanding off those rough edges for an easy watch. Instead of Walken, we've got Casey Affleck, just back from his fourth tour in Iraq, and instead of Russian Roulette, we've got bare-knuckle fighting in the Appalachians. It's a northern industrial town where the mill, the only viable employer, will be closing, and life is hard. You all know how I feel about Christian Bale's mad skills, so I won't go on about how good he is in this, especially that last scene, where he's crouched down and watching, implacable but not cold, not at all, as his prey stumbles away across the field and his hunter approaches from behind. The cast is very good, and Christian Bale is so fucking good, and Woody Harrelson can be disturbingly villainous (Bale: "You got a problem with me?" Harrelson: "I got a problem with everyone").

Problematic and shaggy-edged as is the Deerhunter's greatness, the greatness is there, and much of it lies in those long, shambolic, raggy-assed gaps and awkward pauses and too-long scenes and no-musical-filler quiet places which only happened in the '70s. Now, here, everything is lovely and smoothed over with gorgeous music and silky edits. It makes it easier to watch, no question, and prettier, no question, but the greatness gets left out of the mix.

the Covenant: (2006. dir: Renny Harlin) It must have come from a graphic novel, because it's got that "deep backstory, shallow forestory" fault those generally share.

First, the good part: the production design is flawless, setting us in the middle of a completely integrated world, the rich-kid boarding school chiselled out of the same cold, decaying grandeur from which the central conflict itself rises. Even the dorm they live in feels like the old servant-quarters of a long-abandoned castle. Harlin emphasizes the effect with his camera-work, often encroaching from vast heights, and using close-up to good effect.

The crux of the matter, though, is that the story might have been interesting, but wasn't: the five old witchy families of Salem have escaped further persecution by swearing they will keep their magicks secret, magicks which pass down solely to the first-born male of each generation, coming into full strut on his eighteenth birthday. The other catch is that using the magicks is addictive, and will age the boy prematurely if he does not practice moderation, which is not the general forte of most eighteen-year-old boys.

As I say, it might have been interesting, and wasn't. The characters are interchangeable and rouse neither empathy nor interest. Harlin's main intent seems to have been to cater to the power-daydreams of high-schoolers. There is much beefcake eye-candy on display, the relationships are shallow and simplistic, the action scenes perfunctory, the supernatural stuff unimpressive CGI. He does not care to make these shallow rich kids real for us; they are dream-images, and so we never care, either.