I recently got a chance to go to Cinebarre, a lovely little place where you can order food and drinks directly to your seat during the film. It was a great place, and the staff and food were great (especially the Children Of The Popcorn). But perhaps Fury was not something I really wanted to see during a meal.
Don't get me wrong, the film isn't so bad that I wanted to vomit. Quite the opposite. I just don't think it was a smart move on my part to order a double cheeseburger during a movie filled with brutal violence that leaves it's victims looking like chunks of meat. It was a bit sickening to eat meat with dead bodies on screen, but hey- I'd hate to let all that meat go to waste. In my defense, it WAS a really good cheeseburger.
But on with the plot: Brad Pitt stars as War Daddy, the smoking and cursing pilot of Fury, a tank in the 3rd artillery division of the Allies during World War 2. He and his companions have worked together for a long time, killing Nazi after Nazi, but are stricken by the loss of a teammate and forced to take on a new recruit. This recruit is Norman, a church man who does not get along with the violent tendencies of the old crew. Together, the crew and Norman travel in their tank and encounter various war problems, including Nazis, mines, and a 5-minute scene of the characters doing nothing but eating eggs.
Honestly, most of the movie is like this: Heroes joke, shooting, heroes move on. Rinse and repeat. And don't get me started on the death count.
Yes, Fury is so heavy on the brutality and gore that I had to add a Brutal Death Counter to my notes. At the end of the film, I counted nine insanely disgusting and gory deaths. And because I assume you are not eating while reading my reviews, I shall now list a few of them.
-1 Man lit on fire before shooting himself in the head,
-2 Men riddled with bullet holes in close-ups,
-1 Head crushed under a tank,
-1 Man blown apart by an anti-tank shell
-1 Man who throws himself on a grenade, and
-1 Man taking multiple stab wounds, including one to the johnson
Now, as you can clearly tell, this is a very violent film that shows a lot of the harsh parts of war: we get shock, PTSD, madness, infighting, and lots and lots of bullet action. I get that the point of the film is to show the real dark side of war with the deaths and drawn out scenes, but honestly, I wish they had done it a little better. Platoon did it amazingly, and so did Inglorious Bastards. Now we get Fury, which tosses much of the emotion of battle out for extended war scenes.
The action is good, I suppose. You can see the bullets fly (although why they are green and red remains a mystery) and the burning tanks, and all the casualties are bloodily illustrated if you really want to see them. In the meantime, I'd rather just focus right now on the cheeseburger. At least I don't have to draw eating the burger out as long as some of these scenes.
OVERALL RATING: 6/10
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Is it wrong to give a movie about the harsh brutality of war the same rating as a movie about ponies singing magical songs? I dunno, but I'm doing it. I gave Rainbow Rocks a 6/10 too.
Yes, the action is incredible, especially at the end, and it is interesting to see Norman's descent into the harsh land of war. But the characters are so... bland. We never get any explanation for the characters, or their backstory. There is a scene where Pitt's character removes his shirt, and we see large burns along his back. How did he get these and his lax attitude towards war? We'll never know. The only features of our main characters we can identify is that they are not Nazis, and that's reason enough to root for them. But some of Pitt's crew is so annoying I didn't care if he was a good guy or not. There are some powerful scenes (Norman being forced to shoot a disarmed German with a family) and some impressive war scenes, but the scenes that aren't clearly lack and pale in comparison. If it's a war film you want, then this isn't horrible, but if you have a choice, go for Platoon, a personal wartime favorite and an excellent war film. If Fury is all you can get, then go for it- but know there are better war films. And word of advice: don't eat meat while you watch a war film. Trust me on this one.
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