By Bob Gibbons
This is a bloody and brawling tale of brothers and broken dreams. Although style trumps story, the acting is so good it provides more than enough reason to see this brutal movie. Before the opening credits, Harlan (Woody Harrelson) has beaten a Good Samaritan senseless. At several points, Rodney’s (Ben Affleck) face will look like raw meat. When characters are killed, they’re shot mostly at close range, often left bleeding. It recalls the gritty reality of Winter’s Bone, the gray skies of The Prisoners, the mill-town lives of The Deer Hunter. These are people with sunken eyes and long stares, struggling to control the disappointments that live inside. But this is ultimately a movie about what it means to be family when family is really all you’ve got. Silences run long, but the writing is sharp; the cast is small, the staging depressingly real. The characters play against a background of belching blast furnaces and low-rent houses, of limited choices and an overriding sense of foreboding. Director Scott Cooper keeps the camera tight, showing us exactly what we need to see and no more; forcing us to feel the intensity of the characters up close. As he did in his previous effort, Crazy Heart, he brings together an impressive cast, gives them a gritty story to tell, and directs them to performances that feel intensely real. And this movie has an end credit I’ve never seen before. It reads: This movie was shot entirely and proudly on Kodak film.