Producers of Christian Bale film sued by Native American tribe

A £30 million lawsuit has been filed by 17 members of the Ramapough Native American tribe of New Jersey against the writers and producers of forthcoming Christian Bale thriller 'Out of the Furnace'.

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The federal suit claims that the film makes "false representations about the people who live in the Ramapo Mountains", the area on the border of New York and New Jersey that the tribe resides.

Christian Bale plays Russell Baze in the film, a blue-collar worker who takes the law into his own hands to rescue his war veteran brother from the clutches of a local gang of "inbreds" led by Woody Harrelson's character Harlan DeGroat.

DeGroat is a surname common in the Ramapough tribe, which according to the suit, are depicted as lawless, drug-addicted, poor and violent, and live in the "mountains of New Jersey" by the film.

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The 17 plaintiffs named in the suit filed against the film, most of which have the surname DeGroat, seek "punitive and compensatory damages and allege defamation, mental anguish and emotional distress".

This is not the first time the film-makers have run into trouble with the locals of the region as Ramapough Chief Dwaine Perry named the film a "hate crime" at a public press conference when the film was released.

Relativity Media, the distributors of the film in the States, have yet to respond.

'Out of the Furnace' is out in UK cinemas on January 29, 2014.