Fury has all the right pieces in place - Brad Pitt, World War 2 tanks, anamorphic 35mm photography, a moderately high budget. It has the means to become something great, I mean, if you told me Spielberg was returning to the screen with that kind of material to work with, I would have ran to the theater as fast as I could. Instead, director David Ayer brings a troubled movie to the screen, one with a bit of a troubled tone, and a narrative that feels less like a proper act of respect towards American World War 2 tank crews, and more like Saving Private Tank.
Fury is a movie about a rough and tough tank crew who take on a dangerous mission in the heart of Germany during the twilight hours of World War 2. The movie throws them up against waves of SS troopers, enemy tanks, German towns riddled with anti tank guns, and eventually themselves. It's a piece of World War 2 you don't see often on the screen - more times than not tanks are restricted to minor pieces of stationary explosion machines, and occasionally a triumphant charge into frame at the end of a last stand. It has some exceptional battle sequences, and it does an excellent job of showing the devastation that a tank can bring to the battlefield.
The problem, the main problem anyways with Fury, is that, unlike Tom Hanks and the gang in Saving Private Ryan, not a single one of the characters in this movie are painted in a way that makes you care about them. Right from the opening of the sequence, we see them cussing each other out, kicking each other, and just generally be unpleasant to one another. They spend most of the movie antagonizing their newly assigned assistant tank driver, bullying him at almost every chance they get. It makes the crew come off as a bunch of assholes instead of a war hardened group of tank veterans. They keep saying throughout the film that driving a tank is the, "best job I ever had," yet none of them seem to like each other, or the tank they drive into battle. The only one who seems remotely pleasant is Brad Pitt's character, who barks orders, and struggles to keep his team together as they push through the German front, but one character cannot possibly save an entire movie.
This issue really compounds upon itself when the tanks take a German town, and Brad Pitt and the new guy find two German women hiding in one of the town's homes. They spend their time on break sort of awkwardly befriending these women, ultimately ending with a brief, yet consensual sexual encounter that sort of helps humanize these two characters. Their brief spurt of pleasantness is interrupted when the rest of the tank crew decides to intrude, and true to their form, act like a bunch of complete assholes. They ruin the quiet, pleasant breakfast that Pitt and co. were having, making the scene feel really awkward, and ultimately unpleasant. How am I supposed to root for these guys if they run around doing everything they can to piss everyone off?
Ayer and company then decided to pull a 180 on these characters in the movie's third and final act. Suddenly, this tank crew is full of nice, decent men who care for each other, and even decide they're willing to die for one another. It's such an unbelievable transition, that it ultimately ruins the integrity of the movie's final moments. They end up being tossed into a last stand that feels so anticlimactic and forced that it just feels so implausible. It tries to redeem this group of aggressive, selfish, angry men mostly unsuccessfully. Sure, they kill a shitload of Nazis troops, but it sure as hell doesn't wipe away how they treated those German women, or how they've treated each other throughout the film.
Outside of that, there are some spectacular tank battles - a battle against a German Tiger tanks particularly impresses, and their last stand against the Germans is quite spectacular as well. The visual effects are well made, if not a bit cartoonish at times for a World War 2 movie. Sound design is outstanding as well, with good channel separation and deep low frequency usage.
Overall, Fury is not a great movie. It is at best merely watchable at times, and at other times the characters frustrate to the point that I sort of wanted to leave the theater a few times. I just had the hardest time sympathizing with these men and their fight against the Germans. Please Mr. Ayer, leave the war movies up to the directors that know how to bring good characters on to the screen. Go back to making smaller movies about less important topics, this one definitely could have used a little more finesse than you and your crew were capable of this time around.
Fury is a movie about a rough and tough tank crew who take on a dangerous mission in the heart of Germany during the twilight hours of World War 2. The movie throws them up against waves of SS troopers, enemy tanks, German towns riddled with anti tank guns, and eventually themselves. It's a piece of World War 2 you don't see often on the screen - more times than not tanks are restricted to minor pieces of stationary explosion machines, and occasionally a triumphant charge into frame at the end of a last stand. It has some exceptional battle sequences, and it does an excellent job of showing the devastation that a tank can bring to the battlefield.
The problem, the main problem anyways with Fury, is that, unlike Tom Hanks and the gang in Saving Private Ryan, not a single one of the characters in this movie are painted in a way that makes you care about them. Right from the opening of the sequence, we see them cussing each other out, kicking each other, and just generally be unpleasant to one another. They spend most of the movie antagonizing their newly assigned assistant tank driver, bullying him at almost every chance they get. It makes the crew come off as a bunch of assholes instead of a war hardened group of tank veterans. They keep saying throughout the film that driving a tank is the, "best job I ever had," yet none of them seem to like each other, or the tank they drive into battle. The only one who seems remotely pleasant is Brad Pitt's character, who barks orders, and struggles to keep his team together as they push through the German front, but one character cannot possibly save an entire movie.
This issue really compounds upon itself when the tanks take a German town, and Brad Pitt and the new guy find two German women hiding in one of the town's homes. They spend their time on break sort of awkwardly befriending these women, ultimately ending with a brief, yet consensual sexual encounter that sort of helps humanize these two characters. Their brief spurt of pleasantness is interrupted when the rest of the tank crew decides to intrude, and true to their form, act like a bunch of complete assholes. They ruin the quiet, pleasant breakfast that Pitt and co. were having, making the scene feel really awkward, and ultimately unpleasant. How am I supposed to root for these guys if they run around doing everything they can to piss everyone off?
Ayer and company then decided to pull a 180 on these characters in the movie's third and final act. Suddenly, this tank crew is full of nice, decent men who care for each other, and even decide they're willing to die for one another. It's such an unbelievable transition, that it ultimately ruins the integrity of the movie's final moments. They end up being tossed into a last stand that feels so anticlimactic and forced that it just feels so implausible. It tries to redeem this group of aggressive, selfish, angry men mostly unsuccessfully. Sure, they kill a shitload of Nazis troops, but it sure as hell doesn't wipe away how they treated those German women, or how they've treated each other throughout the film.
Outside of that, there are some spectacular tank battles - a battle against a German Tiger tanks particularly impresses, and their last stand against the Germans is quite spectacular as well. The visual effects are well made, if not a bit cartoonish at times for a World War 2 movie. Sound design is outstanding as well, with good channel separation and deep low frequency usage.
Overall, Fury is not a great movie. It is at best merely watchable at times, and at other times the characters frustrate to the point that I sort of wanted to leave the theater a few times. I just had the hardest time sympathizing with these men and their fight against the Germans. Please Mr. Ayer, leave the war movies up to the directors that know how to bring good characters on to the screen. Go back to making smaller movies about less important topics, this one definitely could have used a little more finesse than you and your crew were capable of this time around.
