Fury - WW II as intense as war movies get

How do I count them, all the WW II movies I’ve seen since I was a kid. It’s a genre that has run through several cycles. There have been the older, patriotic, bloodless movies with stars like John Wayne, David Niven, William Holden. Those were made by the dozens in the late 40’s and through the 50’s. There were the big production, but over-ambitious “cast of thousands” movies like Tora Tora Tora, Pearl Harbor or The Longest Day. There were the witty British movies with lots of accents, cynical dark comedies like Catch 22, insider Nazi dramas like Downfall and Valkyrie, the more recent gruesome and explicit dramas like Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers, procedural dramas like the current series Manhattan and even weird fantasies like Inglourius Basterds or The Tin Drum. One could easily write a large two volume history of WW II movies, one volume in Europe, the other in Asia.

Do we really need another? I don’t know the answer exactly, but Fury is quite an addition to the genre. It falls into the gritty realism group with Saving Private Ryan. In Fury, Brad Pitt is “Wardaddy” a tough veteran captain of a tank crew that has survived North Africa and D-Day and fought its way far into Germany. It’s April, 1945, the final days of the war in Europe, and the SS is staging a suicidal withdraw, impressing children into its army and scorching the earth. Wardaddy is commanding a small tank column and are on a desperation attack, trying to save a cut off unit before they are destroyed by the SS. His newest crew member, Norman (Logan Lerman) is barely shaving, trained to be an army typist and completely terrified; he might get the whole unit killed if Wardaddy can’t turn him into a useful crew member.

The plot of movies like this is fairly predictable, in the sense that we know who wins the war and when. The question will be the fate of this little group of men going into battle against a too large force, against German tanks that were far better than the American Shermans. There are villages stormed, night time firefights, civilian victims and rampant destruction. What prevents Fury from being too procedural, however, is just how gruesome and intense it is. Even compared to Private Ryan, it’s graphic. Bodies are shattered, pierced, incinerated and hit by artillery shells. Corpses are embedded in mud being run over by tanks..there’s not a trace of mercy anywhere in hell. The cast, was excellent, an ensemble of cultural and personality types, all at the edge of their lives every moment. The staging of the battles is terrifyingly believable and relentless, with little digital garbage, seeming to rely mainly on props and pyrotechnic effects. The movie is not about a subtle plot or a thought-out historical idea; it’s just about the last days of the Gotterdamerung.

I’d give this movie a high recommendation, if you can take it. It really might be too much for some people and definitely would give kids nightmares. The trailer doesn’t do justice to just how intense some parts are. If you want to know why your grandfather didn’t want to talk about the war, you will understand after you see Fury.

I saw it, liked it, will post more thoughts on it when I get back.

But I agree with the predictable set-up of a lot of it, particularly the climax.

On a bad note, the projector I had to sit through was really dark, I couldn't see much.

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Suspect's Reviews

"Ideals are peaceful. History is violent."



Fury is a brutal look at the men who find themselves stuck in the death traps known as tanks, in WWII. Brad Pitt leads those men on various missions and they just lost one of their own. A typist, who has never seen the war on the front lines, never killed man, never even fired a gun, is thrown into the tank, that these men call Fury. First, he has to clean out the blood and guts from his seat, the previous person in there has left pieces of himself all over, including part of his face.

Yes, Fury is gory, violent and relentless. It doesn't sugar coat the war and it shouldn't. Not only do people die left right and centre, but they do so in cruel and terrifying ways. One particular death that comes to mind is when a soldier would rather shoot himself in the head than burn alive. It's a shocking moment that makes you realize the horrors of our history. History is indeed violent.

Logan Lerman is Norman Ellison, the boy barely shaves and he is thrust into battle not knowing what to do. He is against killing anyone, it's against his morals, he simply cannot do it. That is until Pitt forces him, against his will, to kill a German soldier who pleads for his life. Another depressingly realistic scene in a film full of them. Pitt knows that if he doesn't break this kid down, he will be the death of Pitt's entire crew. His crew consists of a religious gunner, an impressive Shia LaBeouf, a hot headed redneck prone to outbursts, an outstanding Jon Bernthal and their driver who is consistently drunk, the always reliable Michael Pena. These men follow the orders of WarDaddy, a scarred and nobel Brad Pitt. People might try to relate his performance to Lt. Aldo Raine from Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds, but the two are very different. He puts on a confident and brave face for his men, but behind the tough exterior is a scared man, who only admits his fear once. He predictably takes Lerman under his wing, the typical father-son relationship ensues, but aside from that and a cliched "follow the leader at the darkest hour" scene, the film is a fresh take on the WWII genre.

I say a fresh take because the focus is on the claustrophobic dynamic relationship these men have within the confines of the tank. I loved all the scenes that had me stuck inside with them. You feel the intensity in every moment. Ayer knows this and shoots the scene well enough so that even though you feel trapped, you never get lost or feel that you need to get out of the tank. When Ayer does take us out, he shows the risks and dangers of not being protected by Fury's walls. Even when you think you're safe, moments later you're not. Ayer shows his skill for the battle and the slow moving tanks make for heightened suspense.

Fury doesn't match the levels of Saving Private Ryan, but it's a realistic take on a time where good and bad men on BOTH sides of the war fought for what they believed in. Fury is entertaining and harrowing at the same time.

Great review Suspect, I agree with everything you said. When your inside the tank this movie rivals the best of the best war films. There were a couple of times outside that I thought it lost its way a bit. I wasn't crazy about the new kid, but it drove the plot so that is fine. I thought the war scenes were really outstanding. I gave it a

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Agree with what had been said. It was intense at times, dragged in others. Pitt does a decent job at disappearing behind the character. The bullet tracers were a bit distracting, I felt I was watching Star Wars when it first happened.

Tracers were part of that war, how you knew where your bullets were going. They made particularly ghastly wounds since they added burning metal to the damage already done.

One of the things I liked about Fury was how it was not focused on the good-evil duality of USA - Nazis. For the guys in that fight, it was just where they were and what they had to do.

I realize it was historically accurate, but it was also distracting.

The tracers struck mortal horror in me. In one scene, you see all these wounded German soldiers struggling in the dark with all these points of light on their dark silhouettes and I was wondering what that was, then realized that it was the still burning tracer bullets melting into their bodies, imagined the pain and got a cold chill. That hit me worse than the thought of being spattered by an artillery shell, which has the advantage of being over in a flash.

Entertaining, but still full of problems.

Fury is about a group of soldiers who operate a tank that they call "Fury". When I think of this I either think of an emotional story about a group of soldiers trying to deal with the horrors of war, or I think of the action packed adventures of a wild and rough crew as they travel across Germany killing Nazis. The sad thing is that Fury tries to do both of these things in the movie, and this just makes a muddled mess. I will explain this in detail later, but I'd first like to talk about the acting.

Most of the acting in this film is great, but not quite all of it. There are some moments of overacting, but those happen relatively rarely. The two standouts in the film are Shia LaBeouf and Brad Pitt, and as good as LaBeouf is he gets nowhere near to enough screen time in the film. One thing I really wanted in this film was more character development. For example: Michael Pena's character doesn't do much in the film, and I didn't feel much emotion for him. The frustrating thing is that you can see good characters in there somewhere, but they are never fully realized and brought to life. The only characters that get true development are Brad Pitt's character and Logan Lerman's character. The other characters get brief scenes of emotion here and there, but never truly get a chance to show their true character. It's like someone wrote a script full of dialogue and character development and someone looked at it and said "What's this? Who cares about character development?? Throw that out and put this tank battle in instead." While we're talking about scripts, I need to talk about the dialogue and screenplay of the film.

The dialogue in this film sounds like it was written by two people. Because at some moments there are choppy brutish dialogue lines, and at other moments there are poetic and emotional lines. The combination of these two things is jarring and feels very out of place. This is part of why I think this should have been two movies, not one. In one version of Fury they could have had the rough 'n' tough dialogue and tons of action scenes, and in the other they could have had more of the poetic lines and more character development. This leads me to my discussion of the action scenes and huge tonal shifts in Fury.

Another plus for Fury is the action scenes. They get your blood pumping and are executed well. But after those blood pumping scenes where characters are shouting things like "Yeah, screw you Nazis!" are sad and somber scenes of men shooting guns with piano music in the background, making us think "War is terrible.." This ultimately confuses the audience member, making them wonder, "Are we supposed to be cheering for the main characters or be saddened by the horrors of war?" This continues throughout the movie, and it is one of Fury's biggest flaws. Also, it seems that Fury is going for a realistic action film, so the almost cartooonish violence does not fit well. These are more reasons to split this into two movies. One can have blood pumping action scenes with cartoony violence, and the other could have saddening action scenes with realistic violence.

Fury is not an all bad movie, and this isn't a review just to trash the movie, there were some things I really liked about this film. One thing I loved about this movie was the camerawork. The first shot of the movie is haunting and beautiful, and there is memorable imagery throughout the film. Camerawork and lighting was very very good and I was pleasantly surprised. Another thing I liked was the score. The music, especially in the sad scenes, fits very well with the somber, gray visuals. I also liked the last half hour or so of the film. It worked pretty well for the most part.

Fury was a decent movie, I just feel like they should have taken more time to make it and flesh out the characters more and adress a few other problems. It seems like it was in a rush to be released. They either should have taken more time with it or made it into two movies. Despite all it's problems, I enjoyed Fury for the most part. If there ever was a movie fit for a re-do, it would be Fury. This film had a lot of potential, it just tried to do too many things at once, and made itself a muddy mess. Fans of war films won't be as critical of me, so if you like Brad Pitt or war movies, then I would suggest you go to see Fury.

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I heard a wonderful interview on BBC Radio 4 with 91 year old Peter Comfort who was one of the WW2 tank veterans that was consulted by Brad Pitt and the Fury producers . He said that he was happy with the portrayal of the conditions inside the tank, the only thing he would've picked up on is that all of the men in his tank regiment were even younger than the actors in the film. A salutary reminder of the youth of the people involved in real life

Yeah, most men in the tanks were around 25.

I think Hollywood should do more WW2 films from a German perspective, like they did in the past (Cross of Iron, All Quiet in the Western Front). Sincerely, most US perspective films tend to feel like propaganda from a non-US perspective like mine (exp. Pearl Harbor).

I don't think you'll see many takers on that suggestion from our side of the ocean. Valkyrie and Downfall are about as close as you get.

I see your point, but at the same time this film in no way glorifies the Americans. Killing men begging for their lives, instances of rape underlines a scene in the film as well.

It shows good and bad people on both sides, like when one German soldier

I agree with some of you that this film is historically accurate. But the opening was awesome, just like Star Wars

Most interesting for me wasn't the battle scenes or the final set piece, but it was the war weariness and the cameraderie between these men who had spent the whole war together . Brad Pitt was excellent. His tacitern Wardaddy holding up the morale of his men was the reason the film held together.

Coming from India as I do , I am saying this from an asian point of view . I come from a continent where the concept of 'honour of women' is important .

To be honest it was a bit distressing to see the supposedly decent soldiers of a supposedly civilized nation like the United States practically coming to the point of rape on German women---only to be stopped from doing so by Brad Pitt....and even he kind of forces Lerman to have sex with the young German girl , who has no choice but to give in---though admittedly she has taken a liking for Lerman .

Of course ,it is clear that where people like Brad Pitt's character are not there , there must have been real scenes of rape....this by the 'civilized' amercian army , mind you .

The only explanation that you can comfort yourself with is---
These soldiers did not want to be in this war , it was thrust upon them....
They would have been happy having consensual sex with their wives and girlfriends back home and would not have thought about raping anybody .
But war has already brutalized them...
And above all they have been away from sex and women for months...
In such a situation physical needs make men do all these things .

I would prefer to believe that these soldiers are not born rapists , but the situation is such that they need to fulfill their physical needs.

Of course , all this is nothing compared to the barbarism unleashed by the German army when it pushed through eastern europe and especially Russia . And also nothing compared to the orgy of revenge by Soviet soldiers when they conquered east Germany---reportedly even old women of 80+ age were raped by Soviet soldiers .

After seeing 'Fury' I wonder how horrific a film showing the true horrors of German invasion of Russia would be , or how brutal would a film showing the Russians drive the Germans back into East Germany would be ??....if it does come, maybe I wouldn't wanna see it.....

My take on the movie---
( admittedly I have a part of my earlier post here)

Almost 70 years down the line , moviemakers who earlier merely glorified their ( allied ) side in the second world war seem to have finally got the honesty to admit that their soldiers did some ungentlemanly things ( to put it mildly ) like shooting prisoners of war ( to hell with Geneva conventions ) and forcing themselves on unprotected German women....

Of course , in only a democratic country would such a portrayal of one's own soldiers be allowed....

FURY does show the brutal side of war all too well....one wonders if the next generation would even like to go to war after seeing this movie....

Unlike in other movies , real yellow flames pour out of any gun , cannon , exploding shell , exploding grenade and exploding bomb...
And as the enemy retaliates and the same material comes flaming towards you ( the camera is generally from the allied side ) , you get an idea of the fires of hell....This is most spectacular during night fighting when the golden yellow of the flaming firepower is silhouetted against the dark ( the climax action scene is largely in the dark ) but impressive even in daylight....

And a living breathing talking loving caring human being can be dead in minutes---as the character played by Logan Lerman finds out when a German girl he has just made love to is killed within minutes after that by a bomb.....and he too missed just by a whisker , he could have been dead too....
He is a young man ( or is it just a boy ) who has been put into the thick of the 'action' ( if such a slaughter can be called just 'action') inside a Sherman tank of the American army....and the tank is called FURY....

To be honest , the going is good for the Americans in the movie---for the third reich is on it's last legs as the allies push from all sides into Germany . They don't have to face the full might of the German war machine and it's panzers like the Russians and French and others had to do....
But the fanatical Germans are not giving up even now , and the fighting is tough as it gets...
Even schoolboys and schoolgirls are being forced by the nazis into the fight , making it almost a free-for-all....

Lerman is a little older than them , but he can't bring himself to kill humans initially....something that exasperates the commander of the tank ( superstar Brad Pitt ) , a battlehardened and battlescarred ( they really show the scars on his back in one scene ) veteran of the war....
So off he is sent for his baptism of fire---shoot a captured German soldier dead....something he cannot do until his hands are forced into doing that by Brad Pitt...

So this is our hero of the movie ( Brad Pitt ) , a man who openly flouts Geneva conventions by shooting surrendered soldiers....
And he is arguably one of the better characters in the movie....so is there anything good that can be said about the others ?? Naah....
So if the Amercan soldiers are like this , what about the far more brutal Russian soldiers and the absolutely barbaric German nazis ?? Fortunately , that is left to our imagination....

So you are shown war as it really was , where good and bad is hard to distinguish....
And how hard it is to distinguish , is starkly brought out by what happens when these Amercian soldiers stumble upon German women....

To be honest it was a bit distressing to see the supposedly decent soldiers of a supposedly civilized nation like the United States practically coming to the point of rape on German women---only to be stopped from doing so by Brad Pitt....and even he kind of forces Lerman to have sex with a young German girl , who has no choice but to give in---though admittedly she has taken a liking for Lerman .

Of course ,it is clear that where people like Brad Pitt's character are not there , there must have been real scenes of rape....this by the 'civilized' amercian army , mind you .

The only explanation that you can comfort yourself with is---
These soldiers did not want to be in this war , it was thrust upon them....
They would have been happy having consensual sex with their wives and girlfriends back home and would not have thought about raping anybody .
But war has already brutalized them...
And above all they have been away from sex and women for months...
In such a situation physical needs make men do all these things .
I would prefer to believe that these soldiers are not born rapists , but the situation is such that they need to fulfill their physical needs.

But things always don't go the Americans' way , and that's what happens when they are faced with a formidable Tiger tank of the German army....and also when FURY is left alone to tackle a group of 300 German soldiers....

So can they survive when faced with real odds ?? Does Wardaddy ( Brad Pitt's character in the film ) show the reserves of courage to fight a hopeless fight ?? Can Lerman overcome his softness and become a man ?? What about the other members of the tank crew ??

Watch the movie for the answers....

The glory of seeing the fighting was increased by watching the movie in IMAX form , which made the scenes come closer to the audience....
Acting by everyone was super , and the visual and sound effects just great...
Of course , the film is littered with gory scenes of death and destruction and shattering of bodies----is not for the fainthearted....

The climax shows action at it's very best , but moves away from the realism . Just an epic one sided massacre , with an unbelievably humanitarian gesture at the end....but no doubt it's great to watch....
And the director does show the leading actors as real heroes in the end , inspite of the unethical and immoral things they have done---just a group of normal but brave guys caught up in the mess of a war....

Verdict---Good .

I thought the war scenes were well done but it missed when it tried other things. And the ending was absurd.

yup.. first 2/3 of the movie 10. last act was a 2/10, HATED it. It totally destroyed what was best about the movie up until that point. Imagine if Das Boot tacked on an act by Michael bay where the claustrophobic fragile submarine suddenly becomes an unstoppable doomsday machine that destroys a whole armada.