FURY  2.5***

 

           It’s April, 1945, as the Allies make their final push into Germany.  A battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy ( Brad Pitt) commands a Sherman tank (named “Fury”) and  his crew now includes a rookie soldier with no combat experience. The story is your typical band of brothers squad: you have your messed up in the head character, your overly religious character, your emotionally scarred leader, an innocent inexperienced young man and a Mexican This time it is a tank squad, which offers a different perspective on war and its battles.

 

'Fury' strives to capture the insanity and chaos of war, not only that created by the 'enemy in the distance' but also by Allied fighters. Just as Nazi soldiers are displayed gunning down civilians, we also see Fury's crew harassing German citizens and coldly executing captured unarmed soldiers. In contrast, there are other scenes where not only Fury's crew, but also German soldiers, are seen acting humanely and selflessly. The message would appear to be that war can bring out both the worst and the best in people, regardless of their affiliation.

 

Fury is unapologetically messy and brutal. The crude realistic nature of the film is more than just visual as we have the cast using unrefined profanity mixed in with the usual military jargon. While the cinematography is splendid, it's nothing near as glossy  as  other war movies. Instead, this is an unfiltered portrayal of war. It goes out of its way to display the gritty, bloody, brutal, ugliness of war. In other words, this is not for the fainthearted  as bodies and body parts are vividly shown being terribly wounded or killed or blown up and apart.  The movies doesn't dwell on  gore for shock purpose, it simply shows rather graphically mortally wounded  and burning bodies as if they are normal occurrences, which of course they are in battle.

 

The movie strives to be authentic:   All outfits and weapons in the film were real and acquired from museums around the world; a genuine German Tiger I tank was used, the only fully functioning Tiger tank in the world; genuine allied Sherman and Grant tanks were also used; the cast (including Brad Pitt) underwent a rigorous month long course of boot camp and had to know how to fully operate their tank ; two brands of cigarettes are used in this movie, Lucky Strike and Camel and even the cigars being smoked were genuine Cubans.  

 

But despite the movies’ attempt at authenticity, the movie drastically fails in this regard when it comes to the major battle scene toward the end of the movie. It is ALL Hollywood and in no way close to the reality of an authentic battle given the odds and skill of the soldiers.. I won’t say more so as not to spoil the movie for you except to say that it could be compared to a possible different Hollywood outcome for Custer’s Last Stand if Custer and 5 of his soldiers were fighting from a covered wagon at night with a couple of extra rifles against several hundred armed indians….NO WAY.  

 

Rated R for strong sequences of war violence, some grisly images, and language throughout.

 

Clark