Review of Fury (2014) by Regicide — 16 Oct 2014

This movie was something far from what I expected. When going into a World War 2 movie I have nothing but fond memories of seeing camaraderie and people banding together, mercy and suffering, beauty amongst all the pain in the ways the soldiers interact not only with each other as brothers in arms but with their enemies as warriors of the highest caliber.

Respect and honor and so forth. I also believe it's important to involve scenes depicting the depravity of war, war in all its shades from darkest moments, to light hearted conversations, to acts of valor beyond the normal human's comprehension.

Fury attained some of these goals yet they were few and far between. It captured the depravity of war than went on to blow it into epic proportions with soldiers cussing at every five second interval, looking at women in captured towns as meat for them to rip into at their own leisure, and what may have been others was now, well, theirs.

Fury disgusted me in this showing of barbarism, I feel as if the director looked at World War 2 propaganda and decided that was all their was to the war. I know very well that war has these incidents yet this often? It made me think it was some child trying to convince me of the brutality of his mother's beating by over-exaggerating every detail.

The battle scenes were incredible, and executed perfectly even the explicit language had some sense when used in these scenes, aside from the overdramatic effect of some weapons they were quite well done, until of course the final fight scene.

Ah, the final scene, where Fury finally attained the essence of camaraderie among the soldiers and made you root for them every second, until you realized they needed no help against the Nazi's they were fighting.

To call these SS Nazis, soldiers was almost a laughable idea. The SS were known for their brutality and amazing battle skills, but apparently if you pit them up against a Sherman (a tank mocked by even the American's themselves when sizing them up to any other tank) they fall like flies, throwing their bodies at it until something cracks, refusing to fire weapons thinking it'd be safer to rush the tank and wave their arms wildly to stop the gunfire.

You may think an RPG even in World War 2 was able to be fired from a distance, but according to Fury you'd be wrong, and even point blank it seems as if these RPGs can miraculously miss a shot worse than a musket from ages past.

It's hard to believe these "SS soldiers" could even walk without falling over themselves. I feel if any veteran actually saw this movie they'd wonder why they themselves ever feared these spoon fed children.

Some people might say "Oh, but the Nazi's recruited everyone at this stage in the war, in fact it was stated in the movie." in which case I'd say yes, it was stated excellently so in fact. One of the few moments where the American's seemed almost likable was when they executed the SS officer who hung children.

But I would also say that although they recruited everyone, the SS was something you were not thrown into unless you deserved it. I found myself almost rooting for the Nazis after the forced execution of a surrendered soldier.

Fury made our Golden Generation of warriors seem like monsters. If the director of this film (I had no intention to try to memorize the name of the director after seeing this movie) read into even a piece of war accounts by soldiers and reporters in the field, he/she may have realized the way our soldiers actually behaved was courteous and kind in most accounts, of course there were times when our soldiers were out of line but they were almost always stopped by a commanding officer.

Nonetheless the worst part by far was the fact that Fury made the SS look merciful compared to us. I know the cliché of "young soldier spares enemy because of some level of compassion and fear" but an SS soldier? Really? An SS soldier would have killed him on the spot, yet it shows our soldiers ruthlessly murder a surrendering Nazi? This movie had few good points, I'm sure if any veteran watched this movie they would be disgusted at how they were portrayed.

All in all the movie isn't worth the price of admission, it was a wasted two hours of propaganda to try to slander our Golden Generation.