That was an excellent one.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

The acting in this movie is really good.

It only has the fault of having done it in a large part in the general plane and thus losing a large part of the force. But it's one of the best character presentations I've seen in a long time. In a few seconds, accurate, fast, accurate. All presented of this character. Casey is well presented but not so much and the worst is Bale. He needs a lot of time to introduce him. Too many sequences and too many planes.One of the things I do not like about this movie is that it has about thirty minutes of film left over. Why do I say it? From the presentation of Woody until it comes back out, if I remember correctly, spend almost fifty minutes. He is telling us other things that I think we are not interested in, or half repeating. It is not necessary to see so much of Casey that it is repeated, it is not necessary to see so much of Bale that we are not interested. Or he decides to tell the story of the brothers and Woody or decides to tell the stories of the brothers, but the two can not be told. You do not really know which one is telling you. Once Harrelson comes out again, that's all, this story, then he really was interested in this story and not the other.The actors are all splendid, everyone has their brilliant moments. They are all consecrated actors making a film without a budget and leaving their skin behind.Apart there are faults that I see that I do not believe, I explain them in the spoiler zone.Photography, I understand that in America, fortunately, independent film works and that there are such films, never have a photograph, then when they have shown they are good, they have a budget and they have photography, but of course for the film, photography, He supports with nothing. Does not exist.The direction, the problem for my taste, is that it pretends to explain too much about the characters and it is repeated and lost and the story is gone. He does not know how to make beautiful shots or to have the camera. In fact, there are times when the camera passes without a foreground to general and foreground, with what I get out of the narrative.No instant movie is a movie that is worth watching. Just to see the three of them and see a movie with a background, not just shots and revenge.Spoiler: I can not imagine an American policeman at the end of the movie acting like that, and least of all that character. And the truth is that I was watching the movie and I do not believe that as we know the characters of Bale and Woody, that the story continues as follows. I was watching the movie and I thought how was going to lose Woody used to that life he leads.

Russell, an average guy, working at a steel mill in a remote village, gets arrested for causing an accident. In the meantime, his girlfriend dumps him and his brother, Rodney, gets involved in some nasty fights, not willing to work like a normal person.As you would expect, Rodney's "business" doesn't go as it was hoped, he gets involved with the wrong guy and gets murdered. As the police must follow procedure, thus taking a very long and agonizing time, Russell decides he must do something about it. But don't imagine here that he will go and beat the bad guy up, or shoot him, or something...nooo, he wastes his time waiting for the police until the movie is close to the end, makes a phone call, lures him in his village, takes revenge and the end. As simple as that. What a movie! It has two hours, one wasted on boring and mundane events, half of the other brings some drama, but not too much because it might hurt somebody, while the last part tries to make up for the lack of interest and excitement the movie inspired until that point by providing the much lusted revenge.To say this movie was a waste of time would simply be a compliment for it. Besides the fact that is as boring as it can be, it also features two big stupid and disappointing sequences, on which the movie bases, which make you scratch your head, to say the least. The only positive aspect about this movie is, as usual, the actors, who do their part very well. If it wasn't for them, I would have closed the TV after at most half an hour.

One of the Baze brothers, Christian Bale, is sent to prison for his involvement in a fatal traffic accident. His beautiful girl friend, Zoe Saldana, an impressive actress, hooks up during his absence with the well-meaning local police chief, Forest Whitaker, so she's lost to him. Moral: If you drink, don't drive. Don't even putt.His younger brother, Casey Affleck, joins the army and is sent to the Middle East. He returns shattered by his experiences in combat and is searching for some way out of the battered old industrial town of Braddok, Pennsylvania. Affleck chooses bare knuckle fights in remote places where the rules, if they exist at all, resemble those of cage fighters. People bet on one or the other and make or lose money. I don't believe there are such underground fights, any more than I believed that ex soldiers would play Russian roulette for money in "The Deer Hunter," which this film in some ways resembles. But let it go.The small town fist fights in Braddock are for nickels and dimes. It's up in the Ramapo Mountains of New Jersey, a five hour drive, that the real money is to be made and that's where Affleck wants to go. His de facto manager, Willem Dafoe, does what he can to discourage him. The network up there is run by the brutal Woody Harrelson, looking just fine as the most soft-spoken and menacing looking villain you can imagine. Affleck insists. Both he and Dafoe pay the price of riding on the wild side.This activates the glands governing the revenge motive in his brother Christian Bale. The two brothers shared the same house in Braddock but while Bale joined the community and attempted to make up for his traffic accident and shed his ex-con identity, Affleck was always restless. Whitaker the cop is doing what he can to assist the Jersey police but how much can he do from shabby Braddock? Bale apparently cooperates with the New Jersey police in a raid on Harrelson's den of iniquity but, surprise! Although we see Harrelson shooting up and whooping in his crack high and the police bust through the door, rifles raised, shouting "Police!", it turns out that the cross-cutting was deceitful because the cops were raiding an empty house. Harrelson was in another dump somewhere, straight out of "Silence of the Lambs." Well, what is there left for Bale to do except to lure Harrelson down to Braddock -- easy enough because somebody in Braddock owes him a great deal of money -- and take care of the situation himself by killing Harrelson himself, even while Whitaker shouts from a distance, "Don't do it. Drop your weapon!" He doesn't just shoot Harrelson dead. They have a ferocious fist fight first, one in which Harrelson despite being bashed over the head with a rifle butt, manages to pin Bale down and injure him by bopping foreheads. I hate that cliché because it violates Newton's third law. It should damage both foreheads equally.But Bale winds up on his feet, rifled aimed at the now supine Harrelson, and deliberately shoots him through either the upper thigh or the genitals with that hunting rifle. Harrelson howls with pain, climbs to his feet and stumbles away. Bale lets him get about 50 feet away before putting another bullet through his kidney. Harrelson, all bloody and lurching like a drunk, walks away into a grassy field, probably dying. This is the point at which Whitacker arrives and tries to dissuade Bale from finishing the job. No dice. At about 100 yards, Bale puts a third bullet through Harrelson's back. The victim staggers forward for a few seconds before dropping on his belly, spitting blood. Bale squats next to the dying man, whom he's never met, and asks, "Do you know who I am? I'm Rodney Baze's brother." Exit Harrelson.Let me get socially scientific for a moment. It's an occupational disease. The ending isn't really satisfying. Bale, who has been a nice guy throughout the film, the kind of guy so ridden with guilt that he places a bouquet at the site of his traffic accident to commemorate his victims, becomes a wily and deliberate murderer because, I guess, blood is thicker than the Criminal Penal Code or something.In sociology, the family is a primary institution, meaning it's the one you interact with on a daily basis and owe allegiance to. Cops are secondary institutions, like hospitals, banks, or DMV offices. They're at a remove from the family and in developed countries, secondary institutions have assumed many of the responsibilities of primary institutions, although how much they should interfere in family life is a matter of debate. That's why cops find "domestic disputes" so tricky and troublesome. That's why some of us want families to pay for their own health care out of their own pockets.In this film, Bale throws off the valid authority of Whitaker, representing the secondary institution of the police force, and devolves into a murderer prompted by blood allegiances, while the police could manage the situation with authority and no fuss. He's gone back to the rude values of the Hatfields and McCoys. Of course we all glow with satisfaction as the demonic Harrelson gets his just due, but it's not Bale's job to bring that about. Now Bale is a deliberate murderer, regardless of motive, and can expect to revisit the slams and have a long, long time to do penance.Nice photography in and around Braddock, a steel town that is now largely black and has become dilapidated after the collapse of the steel industry. In 2000, the per capita income was $13,135. That's pretty damned low, almost as low as mine.

What an all star cast. Bale, Shepard, Affleck (Casey, the talented one), Harrelson, Defoe. What a waste. This story-line had great potential, but I guess the trend in Hollywood today is to depress the hell out of every viewer in a desperate tactic to be "edgy." Here's an question for Hollywood screenwriters: will it kill you to try make movies with a tad bit of hope included? Now, excuse me, because after watching this, I need to make an appointment with my therapist.