Review of Fury (2014) by Charles D — 24 Mar 2015

I liked it. The tank battles were cool, Brad Pitt's character and acting were neat and kept me on the edge of my seat wondering if he was a good guy or a bad guy and wanting to know more about his backstory. The MC was generic and boring. Shia Lebuff gave a shockingly good performance, really impressing me by portraying a character very different from his usual stuff. The scene with the squad in the german woman's kitchen having dinner was incredibly tense and excellently shot, acted, cast, and written - I really felt suspense, unease, and anger.

The movie's constant need to remind the audience that the tank dudes were "killing nazis" (as they put it over and over) felt unnecessary and patronizing. As if we would think the tank crew too cruel without being reminded that the people they were blowing apart definitely deserved it. Seriously, I felt like the movie was beating me over the head with the reminders (often shouted during battles) that it was THE NAZIS that the tank dudes were shooting at. And then they referred to some Wehrmacht guys as "nazis" which I'm not convinced is even historically accurate. That's like calling Marines "Democrats" just because the political party in control of the government is Democrat. Not everyone in Germany, or in the Wehrmacht, belonged to the Nazi party.

I did appreciate the way the movie played with the complex morality of the war and the two sides, a favorite thing to do in modern war movies - but difficult to do without demonizing "our heroes" too much or sympathizing too much with the devil. I think this movie pulled it off, showing the (at-times) ruthlessness of the good guys, and the (rare) acts of mercy from the bad guys. It's an important message that I appreciate being reinforced in war movies: bad shit happens on all sides of a war, there's blood on everyone's hands, and it's not nearly as heroic for anyone involved on the ground as it's sometimes depicted. The meta-goals of the war stand apart from the terrible acts of violence required by the soldiers on the frontlines.