Fury (2014) – 3/5

Pitt showcase yes, great movie nope

„Fury“ is an American World War II-themed film from two years ago written and directed by David Ayer, the man who directed Denzel Washington to his second Oscar and is also in charge of the much-awaited 2016 film „Suicide Squad“. For „Fury“, he got to work with Brad Pitt, one of the biggest film stars on the planet, plus a fairly famous supporting cast. The outcome is disappointing. I quite like Pitt in some of his roles, but his participation in „12 Years a Slave“ was already a major letdown and this film here is nothing different. He does not even come close to losing himself in his character. I always had the impression that I was watching Pitt. Zero character transformation from him. But it also has a lot to do with how the film was written, which was in a way that we never forget who the big star here is. The shirt undressing scene is about as cringeworthy as Lautner in „Twilight“. In terms of the contents of the film, it was an underwhelming watch too. I may be slightly biased as I have never been too big on war films (without any comedy), but „Fury“ offered absolutely nothing that hasn’t been done in other war movies already and most of the time done better. It’s tough to feel for any of the characters and the lack of convincing story cannot be made up by boastful special effects, explosions and tanks. So yeah, as a whole this was a disappointing watch, in terms of story and acting, especially the former. People who like empty war films that are style over substance may have a good time with „Fury“, but everybody else can really skip it. It also felt overlong at no less than 2 hours and 15 minutes, during which it frequently dragged I must say. Thumbs down, certainly nowhere near Pitt’s finest career achievements. Actually a contender for weakest, especially with him producing as well. And not a glorious hour for Labeouf, Lerman or Eastwood jr either. Stay away.

Okay, the above was my brief review from early 2016 and I got to watch this again now in 2022 and I want to elaborate a bit more on some aspects and also maybe correct myself here and there. First, it can be said that the title is linked to the tank that the protagonists are in charge of. Mostly Brad Pitt’s character. The connection with the famous horse is undeniable. The cast names I pretty much gave you already. Michael Peña can be added because he has a lot of screen time and he is the kind of actor you always recognize, but not too often remember the name. Jon Bernthal (mistook him for Tom Hardy) also has great recognition value, but more people will remember his name than Peña’s I guess. And Eastwood’s son really does not have a lot of screen time at all. Bernthal plays a character where you could think on one occasion he will maybe turn into an antagonist, but eventually the guys‘ common past helps that they all bond and the conflict at the German women’s house also does not carry any additional gravity in the end and they overcome their egos. He also apologizes after all. This scene I just talked about showed us conflict within the group. I guess this is maybe what happens when soldiers are without women for too long. We do not really find out anything about their private lives. The fact that they have sex with German women implies that they do not have a girl waiting for them at home, but this is of course only an assumption. Pitt’s character on one occasion says that the tank is his home, so probably no family for him either. This scene with the women also includes the slightly cringeworthy topless scene I talked about back then and I still think it was kinda hilarious in a gimmicky way when one of them loses his clothes and the other starts playing piano. Almost dreamlike, but very surreal and probably not among the film’s best moments. Scenes that are memorable for other, for better reasons are the escalation I talked about earlier that followed this undressing I mentioned, the scene in which the new guy is pushed to shoot a German soldier, also before that the scene when he is not ready to shoot a young German and it costs them.

One scene that many will like from a technical perspective is a fight between two tanks that surely made you think of two not very mobile, but very strong animals going up against each other. I guess mostly males liked this scene. I didn’t really, but this maybe also had to do with the reference to the „best job they ever had“ and how they all say so was a bit cringeworthy. I still think other than that the way Pitt’s character was written was a bit exaggerated here and there how everybody really not only respected, but admired him and also his „cool comments“ on quite a few occasions did not help, even if admittedly he still got away with those better than probably any other actor on the planet. Like the scene with the guy who responds to a strategic military question from Pitt’s character that for all he cares the latter can enter the scene on a flying carpet because he knew what a high-quality soldier Pitt is. Or all the talk about how they are the only survivors and how he never lost one of his team and how he is still human saying he will take the girl if the young guy doesn’t or how in the end he is ready to let his men leave before the spectacular final fight, so they keep their lives. Of course, he also saves the young man’s life in the end pretty much by saying that he can hide under the tank. Interestingly enough, the young man there is spotted by a German soldier eventually, but the soldier decided to stay quiet. Maybe he was the young man’s equivalent on the enemy side. A good German. That one was surely the exception. The film is very anti-German or anti-Nazi you could say. There are scenes that are maybe a bit questionable like when on two occasions for example captured German soldiers are shot in cold blood. The one in which the young guy is supposed to become a man or another when they have a large group of very young Germans capitulate. Their adult leader is killed for what he did. We also see people who got killed by hanging because they refused to fight in the war. Or even the significant others of those refusing to fight got murdered as well. Dark times. Germans are also called Krauts on many occasions. Is this racist? Maybe, but it is also accurate given the way American soldiers were talking back then. So all is good and I can even call the film a Kraut pleaser. Sorry, I just had to.

What else is there to say? Oh yeah, you can wonder throughout the movie who from the bunch will live and who will die. I think the only option really was that they will all live somehow or that they almost all die. I kinda had a feeling the young man survives and with Pitt’s character I was unsure. But he departs in a heroic way, takes out the one who opens the tank up there before finally dying. He also could only be gunned down from somebody in hiding, which is telling. Maybe it is really not particularly realistic that the rookie is the only one who survives. Or that the girl he just slept with is killed minutes later under the ruins. Then again, it is wartime, the year 1945 in Germany and nothing was really normal or realistic at that point in that country. What else can be added? The film scored some awards recognition for its performances and you could see here and there that LaBeouf would have a brilliant career ahead of him. Interestingly enough, the film was selected by the National Board of Review among the top 10 of its year. Quite an honor and maybe not really expected. It’s the kind of movie you’d expect to get in at the Oscars maybe in the sound categories, but it came short despite previous recognition. Paul N. J. Ottosson did not manage to repeat his glorious success from half a decade earlier (The Hurt Locker), but „Fury“ is one of his biggest career achievements nonetheless and probably will stay so as well. I am not sure if the title is a good choice, but I guess as you see the tank from beginning to end pretty much during this really long film, it makes sense. In any case, it is a much better title than the one they went with for the German release, namely Heart of Steel. So really extremely random and virtually no connection to the film itself. Could be used for any other military-themed film pretty much.

War films are a bit of a genre that have always had a hard time with me or I should say that I have always had a hard time appreciating, but as I am growing older, I feel that it is getting a bit easier now and I enjoyed this film from a popcorn perspective indeed. Story-wise, it was alright too, but nothing special and it must be said that in some moments they really screwed up and the way Pitt’s character is depicted and glorified here was frequently crossing the line, so I will not totally move away from what I wrote in my original review I must say. I do move away from the negative recommendation though and give it a positive recommendation now. It’s a film worth seeing if you like (any of) the actors or if you are generally interested in war films. I would not say that being German (as I am) makes this film a better watch because of how it is entirely set in Germany. It could have been anywhere else too I suppose. And you should probably also watch other war films before this one or maybe skip it altogether if you do not like Pitt in general because, let’s be honest here, the film is really full of him and his character from beginning to end and it may feel pretty false to people that do not like him the way I do and I would not even blame them. Technically, it is a really strong achievement of course. I think early on they still struggled a bit with the German characters because I as a German could hear that some of them spoke German with accents and the actors were obviously not German, but towards the end they got that right. With the two women for example or with the bad guys in the end too. So yeah, go see this one, preferrably on the big screen if you get the chance.