Fury (2014)

September 26, 2015 2:50 PM

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. Outnumbered, 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.

Critics Consensus: Overall, Fury is a well-acted, suitably raw depiction of the horrors of war that offers visceral battle scenes but doesn't quite live up to its larger ambitions. Rotten Tomatoes: 77% fresh

posted by jazon (10 comments total)

When the most sympathetic character is a religious fanatic played by Shia LaBeouf, your film may have some issues.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 3:23 PM on September 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

Starring Brad Pitt playing Brad Pitt doing an impression of Brad Pitt playing the gritty leading role in a war movie.
posted by Bringer Tom at 3:39 PM on September 26, 2015

Too much 'Look, war is really bloody and bad' combined with 'Ew, look isn't this really gory!'). Basically wanting it both ways.

The scene with them sat around a table in the apartment is just so actorly it made me cringe, even in the cinema I could almost hear the self-regarding DVD commentary whining on about ad-libbing and making the characters real. Awful.

The final battle scene is ridiculous and letting the no0b escape is just chickenshit script-writing. Pena's rolling on the grenade scene is a study in script writing laziness.

Not a fan.
posted by biffa at 3:46 PM on September 26, 2015

I wanted the movie to teach me something about tank warfare... it didn't.
You can tell a lot about the level of directing by the little things: When the actors went into the building with all the dead bodies, there was no hint that there might be a smell.
posted by starman at 4:24 PM on September 26, 2015

I had such conflicted feelings. The opening is great, with the kid cleaning the tank, and then being thrust into battle ("Do your job!"). But this movie really, really needed to come about 20 percent closer to "standard" Hollywood conventions.

I mean, would it have ruined the movie to give Brad Pitt's character a rooting interest? Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan got to talk about his wife, being a teacher and a baseball coach. This isn't hard to do.

You can totally tell this was greenlit as "SPR with tanks and Brad Pitt." Go make that movie.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:40 PM on September 26, 2015

Honestly, I can't get past the title. I keep thinking it should be about Sergeant Fury and his Howling Commandos. I mean, add long as we're doing a comic-book style W.W.II movie...
posted by happyroach at 6:10 PM on September 26, 2015 [1 favorite]

I didn't understand what the point of this film was about. It just seemed so meaningless, and not in the big question sort of way. I wonder what attracted everyone to the script. There just wasn't anything about this which felt like it needed to be told.
posted by cazoo at 8:26 PM on September 26, 2015

Maybe this is a MeTa comment? But it's cool, maybe, to hold off on letting everyone know how little you like a movie and let some other folks in to discuss it first.

I thought the movie was pretty decent. I liked the homage to The Big Red One, too. And Shia LeBeouf's performance was really pretty great.
posted by MoonOrb at 9:27 PM on September 26, 2015 [2 favorites]

I thought this was a fine, action-packed war movie. I had no problem with Brad Pitt and Shia LaBeouf was pretty good in his role. The way the tank fire was filmed was particularly spectacular. Thumbs up from me.
posted by unliteral at 5:26 PM on September 27, 2015

Just watched this. It was a lot better than I expected, the movie doesn't seem to have a great reputation which is why I never got around to watching it, but it's a decent gritty war movie. The final battle was silly, but the earlier battles seem to get decent ratings for accuracy. Underrated movie I think.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 3:09 AM on February 14