Fury

Reviews and commentary on books, films, etc.
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Pat Holscher
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Joined: Thu Nov 30, 2000 6:51 pm
Last Name: Holscher

Fury. 2014, directed by David Ayer.

M'eh.

This movie is touring now and has been subject to a lot of anticipation by fans of history and war films. It'll probably have quite a few fans, but for those who watch movies closely for detail with an eye towards actual events I suspect it will be a disappointment.

Character development in the film is very poor and U.S. troops are portrayed in a fashion that might be more accurate for the Soviet army of the same period, except that the film takes the Gritty Old Guys mixed in with New Guy they don't want to know theme about five notches higher than the norm. According to actual students of World War Two U.S. units, this portrayal is false in general, but this film takes this cliche as one of the essential plot devices of the entire film. It isn't as if anyone who hasn't watched a war film hasn't seen this done before, and done better (Big Red One, Platoon). For a study of U.S. troops in action, Battleground or Band of Brothers would be a much better option.

In terms of combat scenes, the film again would have actually made more sense if it depicted the Red Army in the closing days of the war, rather than the U.S. Army. There was, of course, fighting right up until the last day of the war, but if this film was taken to be accurate it would have us believe that the entire German military was fighting tooth and nail right to the bitter end, when in fact by the stage of the war portrayed the German forces were collapsing in the west with a large number of prisoners being taken. German troops themselves are portrayed as stunningly well equipped and uniformed, when period photographs show a lot of them to pretty worn by that stage of the war.

Scenes early in the film depicting an armored attack against German troops supported by anti tank guns was well well done. A scene depicting Shermans in action against a Tiger tank is interesting, but probably overdone. Still, it is interesting.

At least to some degree, particularly in later stages of the film, a person has the strong sense that they were lifted wholly out of The Wild Bunch, but not in a way that's as novel as they were in that earlier film, and even parts of that film begin to strain a viewers suspension of reality.

Okay, why am I reviewing the film here?

Well, one minor, and it is minor, plus of the film is that its pretty decent in material details. The Shermans are real Shermans (although I don't know what model, there's at least two different models). The Tiger tank is a real Tiger tank. The Germans are armed correctly, as are the U.S. troops, although the use of a Stg44 as a captured tank small arm is unlikely. And, and this is unusual, the use of horses by the Germans is very frequently shown and even shows up as a routine item in the dialog. Indeed, that part is quite surprising. Some small material details are intriguing but unexplained. Brad Pitt's character Sgt. Collier (who speaks perfect German, with that never being explained) carriers a double action revolver and wears three strap cavalry boots, sort of suggesting pre war service in the cavalry, which his character would have been old enough to easily have had.

Having said that, the movie is otherwise a disappointment and I'd skip it if I hadn't already seen it.
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