What was the point of killing Defoe and Casey?

To drive the movie along. Who knows, maybe Dafoe owed him so much money and he was never going to get it back, so he killed him and the witness.

This is my impression of what happened:

When DeGroat met Rodney, he knew Rodney was not the kind of person who would take a dive because of how angry and crazy Rodney is. So he told everyone Rodney would take a dive, driving up gambling odds against Rodney winning even though he himself didn't believe it would happen. He then bet a ton of money on Rodney winning (assuming Rodney would get too enraged to take a dive) and was surprised when Rodney actually did take a dive. DeGroat lost the money he bet on Rodney.

Petty then told DeGroat that they were even. So DeGroat lost money on the fight and lost all the money he could possibly get from Petty. At that point he figures why not just kill them both and get revenge since he lost money on both of them.

Because the script was one thing and the film Scott Cooper had in his mind was probably essentially unrelated to the original script.

These characters dying was I assume a general plot-point that had to be kept. Unfortunately the film, though still with flaws (a lot of the dialogue in less committed hands would be laughably dire) was one thing up until these guys' deaths. This was a film that seemed to be going to explore how the world had gotten a hold of all of these men and dragged them down to the water and held them under. It seemed to be going to explore why they were how they were and precisely how their experiences and just the situation they were born into had affected who they were.

After these guys are killed by the pantomime villain who no matter how well acted, seems a character from another film entirely in amongst these far subtler folk... the film becomes it's second half - a simple revenge flick.

I guess there's something about male violence the film was getting at and to kill these characters is a part of that... I'm loathe to call it a point because the film didn't make one, ultimately.

Also, initially, Out of the Furnace felt to me like it was going to have something to say about family. It set up all these relationships between it's family and those entwined with the family and just destroyed them. It took the trouble to set up Rodney as a broken, tragic character too and especially since Russell is so passive a character (as he ought to be), Rodney really was the heart of the film where I felt strong emotions and then bam... and not for any logical reason either. But I guess that's the point. Life is not logical, but random and cruel.

Anyway, you can wrangle it: the way Rodney was going he was going to get himself killed or literally kill himself anyway quite clearly - he was heading there, but the logistics of why Rodney and Petty were killed is merely that Harlan is a psychopath. There could have been something more. There could have been a deeper way to get to that point I feel and then maybe the second half of the film might have meant more.

I get the point of killing Raymond (Casey) in order to provide a revenge plot. Otherwise Woody and Bale have no motivation for a stand off in the end.

But I feel like there was a million different ways Raymond could have died that would have made more sense. Not only is the audience is confused and never given a reason. But it makes no sense for the Woody's character. What does he get out of it?

I was going to start an identical thread.
Thank you for saving me the trouble.

Of all movie cliches, one I am most deathly sick of is The Mad Scary Crazy Guy Who Runs Things But Will Kill Ya Soon As Look At Ya. (See "Drive" for several examples.) Scriptwriters who've spent most of their days buried in a laptop instead of real life seem to have no problem imaging criminal kingpins who:

1) Run a "business" (criminal enterprise)
2) Successfully
3) Over a long time period
4) Are leaders (feared AND respected)
5) Somehow escape the inconvenience of any meddling by state and federal law enforcement

and ...

6) Will KILL ANYONE AT ANY TIME for NO PARTICULAR REASON with NO FEAR OF CONSEQUENCES.

For those of us back here in reality, it's obvious that #'s 1-5 are incompatble with #6 for any length of time. But I guess people "in the industry" just don't find reality thrillng enough for their taste, so they create their own.

I hate that a movie this good otherwise fell prey to this same old Hollywood crapola.

I think he was just sociopathic and it made him feel like he was a king. These guys owe him money so they are going to come to his territory, get beat up, make him a ton of money, and then he can do whatever else he wants to them. The opening scene establishes that he doesnt care about anyone.

Well it clearly shows pettys phone accidentally calling Degroat when him and Rodney were in the car after the fight, and Degroat heard their conversation where petty was calling him an inbred. So there's the motivation.



Rectum, damn near killed him!

I honestly understood killing Dafoe's character. They had a lot of history and Dafoe owed him the debt that, presumably, would never get paid off. Casey's character however...it didn't make sense. I seriously thought he was going to like, enslave him and make him fight for his freedom. That way he'd profit off of him as well as spur a need for revenge (or rescuing) for Bale.

Unlike others I really enjoyed the movie though. It was well acted, however predictable it may have been.

Boom.