Fury Review

Brad Pitt has had quite the illustrious career. And despite the fact that he is extremely recognizable, he does such a good job in each of his roles that he still manages disappear into his roles. That's why I love watching him act. He seems fully invested in whatever he plays. Because of that, you say "starring Brad Pitt" and I'm down. Such was the case with Fury. Also I do always love myself a good war movie. Lone Survivor from early in the year was quite excellent, so I was hoping for a repeat performance like that. Now saying "from the director of End of Watch and Sabotage" isn't something I'd necessarily be all over, but I can give David Ayer a chance. I suppose some will walk out saying this is cliche and predictable, a been there done that type of thing, but I personally walked out of theater really impressed with what I had just witnessed.

Basically you can say that Fury is a day in the life of a World War II soldier. Like literally. This movie only covers one day. It does give us a background. It's April 1945, so the war is almost over, but the Germans are giving it all they've got in these last moments, so the war is as brutal as ever. But despite that setting, the movie isn't focused on the war as a whole. It's just giving us a personal look at an American tank crew. The tank that we follow is named Fury and its story is quite impressive. American tanks apparently didn't do so well in World War II simply because the German tanks were so much better. The American tanks just didn't stand a chance. But Fury did. I don't really know historically accurate this movie is, but it's one of those situations that I don't think this matters at all, so I didn't even bother with it. This is a very personal, intimate movie that really gives a good perspective on what war was like.It's terrible. Brutal. Awful. And that's why I have all the respect in the world for soldiers that have fought in a war. They go through all that they do, putting their lives on the line, so that they can protect the freedoms that me and you enjoy. I love that extreme level of bravery and I hope it's something that we never take for granted.

Being perfectly honest, this is an extremely brutal and gory movie. One of the more gory war movies that I've seen, so I definitely can't recommend it to everyone, especially those with a queezy stomach. I mean, we are moving along and suddenly, almost without warning, there goes that guy's head. Yikes. I hope he made peace with his maker when the day started. Then we come into this German town and everywhere you look there are German citizens hanging everywhere with signs that say this person refused to fight for Germany. And I mean, the movie starts with Brad Pitt stabbing an enemy soldier in the face. But despite this, I wouldn't call this gratuitous, over-the-top violence. It felt real to what actually happened. Also, the movie wasn't non-stop violence the whole time. There was actually a lot of down time. In one instance, Brad Pitt and Logan Lerman walk into this German house and see a couple of German women scared to death, especially since they were hiding and suddenly American soldiers show up. What happens? Brad Pitt sits down and relaxes. They wash up, try to get to know the girls, and have dinner. And this goes on for a quite some time. I loved it! Like I said, this was a very personal, intimate movie. It wasn't just about war. It was about these soldiers. When the inevitable happens and war does break out, it becomes even more intense because of how emotionally attached you become to these characters.

Speaking of characters, I want to spend some time talking about our main cast. Of course we have Brad Pitt as the sergeant and leader of this tank team. Like always, he is fully invested and completely submersed in his character. But despite him being great, this really isn't a movie about Brad Pitt. Sure, Brad Pitt plays the lead role, but this is much more about Logan Lerman's character. Lerman plays a young, inexperienced soldier. At this point, he has only been in war for eight weeks and he didn't even come over to fight. He came over for typing duties. But suddenly he is thrown into this group and by goodness does he struggle with this. You see how shocked and overwhelmed he is at the beginning, so you really feel bad for him. But then you watch as he grows and matures throughout the movie to the point where he becomes a strength for the crew instead of burden. Logan Lerman does such a good job at this that he definitely deserves recognition. A third person who surprisingly also deserves a ton of praise is Shia LaBeouf. Yes, he does an amazing job. I actually liked him in the movie Holes, so it's not like I've never seen him in a good role, it's just been a while. And of course Transformers completely ruined any positive reputation he had and made him one of the most easy to make fun of actors out there. I actually really appreciate it when a seemingly bad actor turns things around and shows the world that he or she can actually act. This is what Shia LaBeouf does and I applaud him.

So in the end, yes, this is a very brutal, very gory movie. But such is the case with war and I like how this movie was very honest and real with the audience. What made things worse is that while we as an audience were being horrified at the things that happened, some of the soldiers almost brushed it off as an every day occurrence. No, war wasn't a happy time. It was a terrible time and thus the bravery of these soldiers who risked their lives for us is something I can't really put to words and do it justice, but I have all the respect in the world for those who have fought in a war and these are the feelings I got from this movie. Could this movie be called predictable and cliche? Perhaps. But that wasn't the point here. Is it the most moving and emotionally powerful war movie that I've seen. No. There are other war movies that I might consider better, Lone Survivor being one of them. But yet this is still a very solid, very personal war movie that I really enjoyed. Like I said, I can't recommend this to everyone, but if you enjoy war movies and you are able to stand graphic battle scenes, then you definitely need to give this movie a chance. My grade for Fury is a very solid 8/10.