Review of The Fury (1978) by Bill M — 01 Apr 2016

Brian De Palma is one of my favorite directors. When he makes a classic, like "The Untouchables," "Carlito's Way" or "Blow Out," it is amazing, but even when he's behind a film that misfires, like "Bonfire of the Vanities," it's still interesting.

"The Fury" falls somewhere in between on that spectrum. The film tells the story of a secret government organization using telepaths as assassins. When one telepath, Anderw Stevens, is kidnapped, his government agent father, Kirk Douglas, goes on a mission with a telepath he helped escape, Amy Irving, to find his son.

On the negative side, the story is rather pulpy and felt like the film couldn't make up it's mind what genre it wanted to be, starting as a conspiratorial thriller like "The Parallax View" or "Winter Kills" then shifting to science fiction ALA "Dreamscape" or "Scanners" and then becomes essentially a horror picture along the lines of "The Omen" or "The Exorcist.

" Genre mashup films can certainly work and I actually love it when a film works that cannot be easily put into a box, but this film's story felt more like it just couldn't make up it's mind what kind of film it wanted to be.

DePalma mixed horror and science fiction much better with his earlier film "Carrie." However, on the positive side, the film features a number of terrific De Palma-esque set pieces, and not all of the action sequences.

My favorite is then where Irving escapes her captures with the help of Douglas, but the voureyistic opening scene along the beach boardwalk where Irving and her friend are being followed along the boardwalk is a close second.

Also in the plus column is the presence of Kirk Douglas who is always great. I also enjoyed the Bernard Herrmann-esque score by John Williams. But it's really De Palma's cinematic flourishes and even his excesses, particularly the over-the-top finale, that make this film entertaining even if it is kind of a mess.

Carrie Snodgress, John Cassavetes, Daryl Hannah (in her film debut), Dennis Franz, and Charles Durning also appear in the film.