FURY: MOVIE REVIEW
Directed By: David Ayer
Written By: David Ayer
Genre:ACTION ADVENTURE/DRAMA
Rated: R
Time: 134 min
Starring: Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Pena, Jon Bernthal, Jason Isaacs
Plot: "April, 1945. As the Allies make their final push in the European Theatre, a battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy commands a Sherman tank and his five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Out-numbered, out-gunned, and with a rookie soldier thrust into their platoon, Wardaddy and his men face overwhelming odds in their heroic attempts to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany.
Comments: Joon-ho Bong has done some great films, The Host and Mother being two of them. Now most people haven’t heard about Snowpiercer or are lucky enough to have it show up in their local theater. I knew that US distributors wanted to cut 20 minutes from the film, but the director wouldn’t budge and good for him. Luckily the same time it is out in theaters, it is also available through our XboxOne.
When my dad and I have movie night if there is a war film out, you can wager that is probably what we will be seeing. This week it is Fury, a WWII film about a tank. Now the trailers would lead you to believe that it would be your typical heroic triumphant tale of how a lone, broken tank held the lines and took out 300 Nazi soldiers. Or something like that. Instead for me it was all about the soldiers in the tank from Brad Pitt’s ‘War Daddy’ to young Lerman’s ‘Machine’. War is brutal and this isn’t exactly the kind of film you walk out feeling all light and fluffy or even jazzed up about. Mostly it was depressing. But that is what war is. It’s depressing. It’s ugly and it’s horrific. This movie was about war. But it was also about Fury. ‘Fury’ is the tank that houses Brad Pitt and his small little family of survivors. It’s also the tank that provides the action for the last act of the film. Fury is also the emotion that is frequently spotted. Fury that war is hell. Fury that war isn’t polite. And Fury that there seems to be no way out.
Each man in the tank plays a different stereotype. You have the Jesus saves crewmember, Bible (Shia LeBeauf who is actually really good in this role despite being fairly one dimensional compared to Pitt and Lerman), the hick you love to hate Coon Ass (Jon Bernthal), and your obligatory ethnic crew member Gordo (a woefully underrated Michael Peña). It is a shame that the other men in Fury do not have the layers that Wardaddy and Norman have. Instead there are good performances with cookie cutter archetypes. The chemistry between them all seems very real and natural and I actually wonder how many things may have been improvised due to that natural chemistry.
One of the best scenes in the movie is when Team Fury and gang manages to hold a small village. Most members of the Fury crew go get drunk and find some R&R in the arms of a local woman, or you know have fun pillaging, but Wardaddy finds an apartment with two women and invites Norman to go with him. It is a tense meeting at first and I begged Wardaddy to not be like his compatriots, to be a good man. He offers eggs if the older of the two would just cook them and asks for water to clean up. It’s a brief respite from war. There is piano playing, smiles, and even some laughter. But the innocence is shattered when the rest of the crew find them. They are drunk, hostile, grabbing at the pretty German women, and being everything you don’t want them to be. They are racist, they are cruel, and completely unwelcome. Old war horror stories and past events shatter the calm. It’s heartbreaking as is the scene that follows. But that is the thing…the whole movie is heartbreaking, even the final act. Because it is about war and how it changes you, lingers, and destroys.
Rent/Cinema? Cinema (If you can). While it’s not a movie I will buy when it comes to video, I am not disappointed that I saw it. I did want more from it, but that is because you had a decent cast. It was almost as if the film wasn’t sure what it wanted to be and the pacing is slow in many parts. But like I said I enjoyed and it was entertained. And to me that is the best perk when going to the movies.
3/4 popcorns
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