Fury (Brad Pitt / David Ayer)

cassid

Saw this at the weekend and loved it.

War films are not something I would be drawn initially to but I thought it was great.

Would definitely recommend it.

Made me think about the level of PTSD veterans must have had after the war, how do you go back to normal life after experiencing so much chaos , suffering and death.

DvB

Watched this last night, apprehensively at first based on the negative opinions here but have to say, overall I really enjoyed it.

Fair enough the ending could be classed as 'hollywood' or suchlike, but if we ended up with the 5 lads getting blown to pieces after a minute or two of combat we wouldn't have much of an end sequence or would people prefer a historically likely to be accurate film that delivers less entertainment? Sometimes I think people are too quick to dismiss what is essentially fiction being 'impossible' or suchlike, & thats OTT IMO, anyway, anyone who has read enough accounts of individual episodes of combat in WWII for example will testify to there being instances where a few hardy souls facing seemingly insurmountable odds managed to perform way beyond their expectations.... I like to think that this type of film gives us an insight into how one of these events may play out. There's plenty of truly magnificent war films out there that dont provide such endings & each has their place, but I wouldnt dismiss this because its not one of them.

FWIW I thought the duel with the Tiger was the best sequence in the whole film, I really enjoyed that.

Historically accurate? Unlikely but not impossible.
Entertaining? IMO absolutely.

Well worth a watch, 7/10

gandalf

Saw it the other night. It was entertaining but I expected more given all the hype about it. I certainly wouldn't count it as one of the best war films out there.

The ending was ridiculous. As stated by others there is no way that a experienced Waffen SS battalion would rock up to a tank like that. I suspect they would have scouted it and maybe even fired a Panzerfaust into it first. As for Pitts death he would have been spread all over the inside of the tank if two grenades went off inside it. It's a shame because they seemed to cop out at the end.

I found the tracer fire to be off-putting as well. It looks like they stole some of the special effects from Star Wars.

Micky Dolenz

A terrible terrible movie.

A disabled tank v a few hundred special forces. They would have lasted about 60 seconds after initial engagement. One of the SS bazooka lads misses from 10 feet. To name but a few massive oversights.

Ridiculous beyond belief. More American Hollywood fantasy drivel.

The killing of the surrendered POW without as much as an objection from any on site Officer or NOC is laughable.

Worse of all, and I have only watched it once and don't plan and watching ti again, is the attention to detail. When the young lad is pulled out of the tank at the end, he is dressed in perfectly clean cloths. Only a few hours ealrier he had dug himself into wet muck under the tank.

The entire movie is an insult to it's viewers. Avoid it.

beauf

It's a very flawed film. I've yet to meet anyone in real life who's seen it. Only people who like war movies will go see it. You have to wonder at whom is the film aimed at. There's some ridiculous scenes in private Ryan too.

beauf

Tony EH wrote: »

Well, there's two mentioned above, 'Das Boot' and 'A Bridge Too Far', and while they certainly have some flaws (mainly technical), I couldn't call them deeply flawed.

'Fury', however, gets a lot technically correct (within reason), but then buggers a lot of other basic things in the process. Like tankers riding into combat and they aren't buttoned up? That's just Hollywood nonsense. They wouldn't have lasted five minutes.

I'm a bit fan of das boot. I've read the book. Watched the various versions and just happened to watch the uncut version recently. Its based on the authors experiences but its an exaggerated version of his experiences. A lot of it didn't actually happen. It has also struck me that many of officers do almost nothing. There's no sense of what they do.

Jawgap

CONTAINS SPOILERS

I like a good 'war' movie. Took the wife along to see it - she hated it.

I thought it was ridiculous........and not because of the nerdy historical inaccuracies - all films have those, but as long as they get the 'big stuff' right, tell a good story and you don't have to suspend your disbelief too much to ignore the plot holes.

I liked the scenes in the tank - I let tankers decide how credible they are. (btw, do tankers call 'fire' in a tank when clearing the main gun?). Likewise the use of the tanks with and against infantry, I wouldn't know how truthful those scenes were, but my suspicions tell me they were a bit wide of the mark - especially the tank-on-tank engagement. I suspect a lot of artistic licence was at play here for reasons of drama, and to be fair these were dramatic scenes and probably the best in the film.

Aside from that, I found the film rotten with cliches which grated -

• the hard bitten, cynical, tough but ultimately paternal leader
• the innocent rookie (yes, I know he represents the audience)
• the religious nut
• the greasy rough-as-a-badger's-arse mechanic (who is conflict with the religious nut, but then they work things out)
• beauty in a time of war
• the one 'good' German soldier - among all the cardboard cutout evil tw@ts
• etc etc

The one question I'd like answered is this - if a tank has been immobilised at a crossroads, in fairly flat country, and an infantry battalion arrives on foot, why not skirt the obstacle by crossing the field? And would they be marching in such close order when the air was ruled by the Allies? and if they decide to attack it why not just hit from the rear and pepper it with panzerfausts (which they seemed to have plenty of).

I thought it would have been a lot better.

Roll on the 'Mighty Eighth'!

Jawgap

BTW, if you haven't seen it, I can recommend Lebanon - I thought that was pretty good - the whole thing is set inside a tank taking part in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

BostonB

I watched Lebanon and couldn't really get into it. Probably wasn't in the right frame of mind. I liked Beaufort which is quite similar. You might like that also.

I seem to remember two old movies about tanks. I think one is the bogart movie. Is there another one (50s?) about a British tank on it own in the desert slowly running out of ammo. being attacked by I assume Arabs on Camels?

Tony EH

Jawgap wrote: »

CONTAINS SPOILERS

I like a good 'war' movie. Took the wife along to see it - she hated it.

I thought it was ridiculous........

Yeh, your opinions pretty much coincide with my own opinions.

It's just a shame they made such a monumental screw up, because 'Training Day' and 'End of Watch' were pretty good and the director was involved with both.

There's just so many things wrong with 'Fury' though.

I actually laughed out loud, when Germans shot the old man telling Brad Pitt where they were at the end of the street.

Perhaps shooting Brad would have been a better idea? No?

Those stupid Germans. :rolleyes:

Jawgap

Training Day and End of Watch were excellent, I definitely agree and it certainly augured well for this film - along with Pitt, who despite being a bit of a pretty boy is a decent actor.

A lot of squandered potential, imo.

Perhaps killing Brad would have been a bit extreme - putting one through his haircut might have served the film better.

On the plus side, I thought there was a 'great' sense of claustrophobia for the tank scenes - you could almost smell the sweat and oil!

Tony EH

BostonB wrote: »

I watched Lebanon and couldn't really get into it. Probably wasn't in the right frame of mind. I liked Beaufort which is quite similar. You might like that also.

I seem to remember two old movies about tanks. I think one is the bogart movie. Is there another one (50s?) about a British tank on it own in the desert slowly running out of ammo. being attacked by I assume Arabs on Camels?

The Bogart one is a propaganda film called 'Sahara'. It's awful, but not as awful as the 80's remake with Jim Belushi.

Not sure what the British one would be though.

Tony EH

Jawgap wrote: »

Training Day and End of Watch were excellent, I definitely agree and it certainly augured well for this film - along with Pitt, who despite being a bit of a pretty boy is a decent actor.

A lot of squandered potential, imo.

Perhaps killing Brad would have been a bit extreme - putting one through his haircut might have served the film better.

On the plus side, I thought there was a 'great' sense of claustrophobia for the tank scenes - you could almost smell the sweat and oil!

Yeh the interior scenes were good and the fact that the allied tankers weren't angels was somewhat refreshing.

I heard Shia LeBeouf didn't wash for months and stank out the set.

Good man Shia.

Potatoeman

I enjoyed it for what it was. Its not a patch on beast though.

BostonB

I actually think it was this...

http://www.amazon.com/The-Steel-Lady-Rod-Cameron/product-reviews/B005E7SFHE
http://www.amazon.com/The-Steel-Lady-Rod-Cameron/dp/B005E7SFHE

Its probably 20~30yrs since I saw that and the bogart one.

Any one seen Belyy Tigr (White Tiger)?

BostonB

Tony EH wrote: »

Yeh the interior scenes were good and the fact that the allied tankers weren't angels was somewhat refreshing.

I heard Shia LeBeouf didn't wash for months and stank out the set.

Good man Shia.

He didn't have to method act crazy anyway. That must have saved some time.

BostonB

Potatoeman wrote: »

I enjoyed it for what it was. Its not a patch on beast though.

The beast isn't enough tank for a tank movie for me.

Tony EH

BostonB wrote: »

I actually think it was this...

http://www.amazon.com/The-Steel-Lady-Rod-Cameron/product-reviews/B005E7SFHE
http://www.amazon.com/The-Steel-Lady-Rod-Cameron/dp/B005E7SFHE

Its probably 20~30yrs since I saw that and the bogart one.

Any one seen Belyy Tigr (White Tiger)?

Ah right. Yeh that's a pretty run-of-the-mill B pic from the 50's, with a Chaffee masquerading as a Panzer III.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlHDoc_nWig

I have a copy of 'White Tiger' floating around somewhere, but I haven't bothered watching it. I supposed I'm just fatigued with bad war films, that I'm apprehensive about wasting my time on what are usually bad experiences and a lot of modern Russian WWII films are rubbish.

Potatoeman

BostonB wrote: »

The beast isn't enough tank for a tank movie for me.

They should make a movie about this guy: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Knispel

Wailin

beauf wrote: »

It's a very flawed film. I've yet to meet anyone in real life who's seen it. Only people who like war movies will go see it. You have to wonder at whom is the film aimed at. There's some ridiculous scenes in private Ryan too.

Such as? Not being smart but I thought it was pretty realistic and was just wondering what scenes you thought were ridiculous.

Jawgap

Probably the best tank movie ever made.......:D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ANyevEUpyM

Tony EH

Wailin wrote: »

Such as? Not being smart but I thought it was pretty realistic and was just wondering what scenes you thought were ridiculous.

Well, the whole final battle scene is a bit silly for a start.

And letting the German soldier go? Yeh right.

BostonB

Jawgap wrote: »

..The one question I'd like answered is this - if a tank has been ...



Roll on the 'Mighty Eighth'!

Kinda need spoiler tags there.

For the me highlight of the the end scene is the noise of the MG34/42.

The rest is blah.

BostonB

Whats the Mighty Eighth?

Jawgap

At a recent seminar I attended there was an informal discussion on what makes a 'good' war movie / film. The general consensus seemed to be that a good film can get away with loads of howlers if it is consistent with the spirit of the event is trying to portray - or if it's just a good yarn.

It was interesting - bearing in mind that this was a room full of historians - that something like Zulu (as a film) and the Great Escape were very highly rated, but War Horse was rubbished! Likewise, Where Eagles Dare got a big thumbs up, as did the Battle of Britain, the Bridges at Toko-Ri, A Bridge too Far, Kelly's Heroes, The Big Red One etc

Behind Enemy Lines, The Green Berets, Pearl Harbour [insert vomit icon here] were rated as the worst.

The Thin Red Line was probably the most contentious!

BostonB

I'd love to been at that.

I'd broadly agree. Which is why I like the atmosphere and vibe of Fury. Even poor in many other aspects. Where Eagles Dare is ridiculous in many ways. But one of my fav's. That said its typical Alistair MacLean which I went through a phase of reading. Loved HMS Ulysses. For some reason "Eagles" is my fav xmas movie.

Jawgap

BostonB wrote: »

Whats the Mighty Eighth?

Hanks and Spielberg have started early pre-production - apparently - on a "Band of Brothers" style mini-series for HBO. This time it's the bomber boys.......

This is not a trailer, but it's been bandied about - another producer prepared this as part of a pitch for making a film about the 8th USAAF, but it seems HBO got involved and decided it would be a good topic for 10-part mini-series.

Source material is supposed to be "Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the War Against Nazi Germany" by Donald Miller.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhmFFtjB2qY

Tony EH

That trailer looks kinda silly. I hope the finished product is better. Much better.

If the Hanks/Spielberg production is as good as 'The Pacific', I'll be on for it.

BostonB

I've yet to watch the pacific. Couldn't get into it. Must try again.

Jawgap

Tony EH wrote: »

That trailer looks kinda silly. I hope the finished product is better. Much better.

If the Hanks/Spielberg production is as good as 'The Pacific', I'll be on for it.

I'd say it'll be a lot better - it was put together by another production company who were pitching around the idea.

It sounds like HBO picked it up with the intention of it 'following' on from BoB and The Pacific, so if it's true to it's pedigree it should be very watchable - especially as CGI has moved on so much in the last few years.

Tony EH

BostonB wrote: »

I've yet to watch the pacific. Couldn't get into it. Must try again.

Yeh, a lot of people seem to have had a problem getting into it. I thought it was more accurate and realistic than 'Band of Brothers' though. The former effort made war look a bit easy TBH. You'd think Easy Co. waltzed through Europe without a scratch.

Potatoeman

Tony EH wrote: »

Yeh, a lot of people seem to have had a problem getting into it. I thought it was more accurate and realistic than 'Band of Brothers' though. The former effort made war look a bit easy TBH. You'd think Easy Co. waltzed through Europe without a scratch.

I didnt think it was as interesting though. I would have liked more naval combat too.

Jawgap

BostonB wrote: »

I've yet to watch the pacific. Couldn't get into it. Must try again.

It's not BoB! And I think a lot people approach it expecting BoB II.

I think BoB was 'helped' by the fact that the timeframe was a compact 8/9 months from entering combat to the end of the war, whereas the Pacific War was longer, more geographically spread out and more stop-start. It's a cracking series though, and 'Helmet for my Pillow' is one of the best memoirs I've read.

Wailin

Tony EH wrote: »

Well, the whole final battle scene is a bit silly for a start.

And letting the German soldier go? Yeh right.

Name one war movie that doesn't have a ridiculous battle scene! Saving Private Ryan is more realistic than most. Suppose there's always people out there who will moan and complain. It's entertainment at the end of the day, relax and enjoy instead of picking!

Tony EH

'A Bridge Too Far', 'The Battle of Britain' are two that have decent battle scenes, that aren't silly or OTT. 'Tora, Tora, Tora' has some very good battle scenes too.

BTW, if I can pick apart unnecessary stupidity in a war film, I'm not being entertained.

Jawgap

Tony EH wrote: »

'......

BTW, if I can pick apart unnecessary stupidity in a war film, I'm not being entertained.

That's the reason I end up watching most of them in my own......;)

Wailin

On da ball lads.........;)

Jawgap

Von Ryan's Express on Film 4 now.......that's the evening sorted!!

SoapMcTavish

Dempsey

Anyone ever see green tinted tracers?

donaghs

I didn't expect much from Fury, but enjoyed it a lot. The climatic battle scene did seem a bit silly, but up till then it was a great war movie,

Watched this the other night and really liked it, it's a rather human look at war though find the claims that it's anti-war to be utter tosh. I don't believe that you can make an anti-war movie about soldiers at war, it just doesn't work when seen in the context of men and children shooting one another.

Much like all of Ayer's work, Fury is a film which looks at violent men thrust into violent situations and how they react and engage with one another and the situations at hand. Fury is a no frills, grizzled and old fashioned depiction of the brutality of war and while it may at times get stuck in the mud it really does come into it's own and is one of the finest war films in many a year.

Fury is not an action film, nor is it one which relishes in depictions of violence. It is a film about men and the scars they wear. The characters may at first glace appear to be stock but as we spend time with them we come to recognise that each of them deals with the horror of war by retreating into the comfort of the role they are expected to play. Pitt is great as the domineering and weary blood thirsty leader who is at this stage simply out for revenge. Shia LaBeouf is surprisingly effective and does good work alongside Pena and Bernthal though it;s Logan Lerman as the timid clerical worker cum tank driver who really impresses. His innocence is at stark contrast to the rest of the crew and watching as Pitt and co taint his soul is striking. The first kill moment is one of the most heartbreaking moments of cinema this year and the perfect depiction of how innocence is the first causality of war.

What is most refreshing about Fury is that Ayer never relishes in the violence, this is not a film which glorifies war or engages in showing bombastic acts of bravery or distilling it all down to war porn. The battles are carefully choreographed with the tank battles at time having the precision of a ballet. These moments are both exhilarating and horrific and show the horror of war. Fury is not a film about heroes, nor does it try to pain the German soldiers as monsters, rather it's a film about men faced with harsh decisions and how they react. It also looks at how during a time of such unrest, how men can amongst themselves forge an alliance that is unbreakable, at heart Fury is a love story about that which exists between men who would lay down their lives for one another.

On the ending, lot of people seem to think that the ending was too "Hollywood" but I really liked how it played out. While the approaching soldiers did have launchers, that does not mean that they had ammo for them. The film takes place during the final days of the war and as such the German army are not the effective machine they once were. It appeared that the final onslaught was waged by the dregs that remained. And as for the final moment where the German soldier doesn't alert his comrades to Norman, well I really liked how that played out. I didn't view the moment as the soldier having respect for Norman but rather that he wanted to show a little humanity to another human.

beauf

While I broadly agree with the sentiment, I think the characters were too exaggerated. The main battle scenes tactically were nonsense. That said I still really liked it. The emotions and atmosphere were great.

Tanks never attack head on they would always try to flank. Same with infantry. If your tank was disabled, you got out as fast as possible. A disabled tank, is a bullet magnet. Sherman's were notorious for going on fire. Apart from the lack of realism, I think the battles lost a lot of their potential drama and tension from the way they were done. That said I still enjoyed it

Tony EH

Completely agree on the tank tactics. They were mush,

especially the Tiger coming out of cover and completely giving its game away? Stupid. Also, tank commanders riding into battle with their heads out in the open? That's Day 1 stuff of how to get killed in a tank battle right there. Silly and completely unnecessary nonsense that any adviser to the film would have shook their heads at.

Also re: Shermans.

The early marks were the "ronsons". By the time 1945 came around (the time frame for the picture) and wet stowage and the like, the propensity for them to flame up was largely cured.

In the end though it's another stupid Hollywood war film to be dumped in the "what could have been" barrel.

Duggy747

Agree with some of the battles, they were enjoyable but they were far from realistic especially

the end battle were the German infantry were just letting themselves be mowed down like lemmings by a static tank as wave after wave ran in front of it's guns.

Just pure nonsense which seriously dented the tension and drama in it.

J Mysterio

Yeah... Really was Stormtrooper levels of stupidity.

Varik

Would have been happier if that final battle was cut, it was just stupid.

Enjoyed film overall.

senordingdong

The scene with 'Emma' stands out, in contrast to Normans execution scene.
An attempt to balance the brutality with tenderness, with Pitt in the middle refereeing both sides.

beauf

On reflection the stand out feature of this movie for me was the sound. Otherwise its a very crudely made movie, in that it lacks finesse.