Fury Review Part 1
Tanks for a great movie!
When you really think about it, the outcome of WWII was kind of a disappointment. Sure, we won the war and for like six months America was the hero of the world but all it really did was set us up for the Cold War like your best friends date setting you up with her ugly cousin (and that date went for 50 years). It didn’t take long for France to start hating us again no doubt based on their belief that in time they would have cast out the Germans through the strength of their Résistance (you know, I almost managed to type that whole sentence without laughing out loud) and over time some of the more morally ambiguous decisions we made started to haunt us (American internment camps of Japanese-Americans (thanks to George Takei for educating me on the proper term. You rock!), dropping the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as a means of seeing what it would do, the ultimate rise of the American military/industrial complex that is steadily grinding our economy into dust, etc.). Honestly when you really think about it the only good thing to come out of World War II (from an entertainment perspective at least) is the Nazis.
Not to say Nazis are good. They are horrible people and the epitome of how bad humanity can get. If I could go back in time to kill three people first off would be Adolf Hitler (followed by Melvil Dewey, inventor of the hated Dewey Decimal System and George Lucas at the premier of the Return of the Jedi. 
Sure we would lose American Graffiti but it would a small price to pay for never having to watch the Phantom Menace or any of the other horrors. Losing Red Tails would be a bonus. Image courtesy of my own private collection of cool Star Wars t-shirts). However, due to the increased importance of global ticket sales and the namby pamby super PC I-just-soiled-my-designer-Underoos fear of offending any potentially lucrative minority Hollywood has been cursed with the modern list of groups to be considered movie villains has been reduced to white trash racists, North Korea, rogue CIA elements, and Mexican cartels. Literally every other group in the world has someone who will sue, protest, or potentially not buy a movie ticket.
However, when doing a movie in WWII all those problems dissipate like a mild fart in a wind tunnel. Nazis are the perfect villains. They are by definition all white so you don’t have to worry about offending any minorities, the are demonstrably evil, and even most of the Germans dislike or disavow their existence. By being evil from the get go you can have them be as evil as you like and anything you do to them is fair game. If you dressed a bunch of babies in SS uniforms and filmed a scene of them being tossed into a wood chipper no one would blink because they are Nazis.
(Notice we don’t have a lot of films involving the Japanese because that might be racist. Also the Japanese are now our friends and are cute perverted wierdos who have game shows where guys in loincloths eat bugs and buy used panties from vending machines.)
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Fury Review Part 2
From the first trailer I knew I was going to love Fury. You see I am what wargammers call a treadhead. I love tanks and always have. On the rare occasion that I travel if there is a tank museum anywhere around I will always try to visit it. The addition of a tank of any kind will automatically make a movie better. The Bridges of Madison County would have been an amazing film if Clint Eastwood had driven around in an M60 Patton. Here is a list off the top of my head of movies that rocked because they had tanks in them: Tank, the Beast (amazing movie BTW), Time Bandits, Tank Girl, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, A Bridge Too Far, and Patton. Some of these films sucked, but the tank made them better. So naturally I was inclined to love a film about a tank crew.
I was extremely gratified to see that David Ayers either knows a thing or two about tanks or he did some research because he accurately showed how good American tanks were in WWII and that is they were crap on a stick. American tanks sucked back then and we made up for that failure by just making over 50,000 of them. Kind of hard on the crews but we really didn’t have a choice. 
This film accurately showed what would happen if a Tiger I (the Hulk of WWII tanks. Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger Ausf.E. Image courtesy of the Hulk t shirt category) encountered four M4 Shermans: the Tiger kicked seven kinds of ass on the Shermans and only by being very lucky was Fury able to beat it. I was also thrilled to see they actually got a hold of the last working Tiger tank in the world and used it for the film. That kind of tread accuracy does my heart good.
This film was also great in showing what it would be like to be a crewman in a tank in battle. The accurately captured the claustrophobia and terror. The action scenes were great. During the many battle scenes I experienced the rarest gift a film can give an audience member: excitement. I was actively gripping my armrests after watching the tanks in action knowing that any one of them could blow up at any time. The action was also horrific and gruesome. If watching men burn alive in battle isn’t your thing this might not work for you.
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Fury Review Part 3
I also have to say I loved the cast and their characters. Even Shia LaBouf didn’t put me off my feed and that is saying a lot. 
Of course having Jon Bernthal from the Walking Dead is worth Shia at his worst (and honestly he wasn’t bad. Image courtesy of the Walking Dead t shirt category). David Ayers has done many movies involving the simple yet complex dynamic of men and their relationships with each other. Films like Training Day and End of Watch really explored how men interact with each other in all their testosterone glory. This film explores that to the nth degree with the crew of Fury both loving and hating each other. You can’t spend months in the same metal can with five other men without some conflict and you can’t survive that long without developing a true bond of brotherhood. The introduction of the new recruit mixes that dynamic up a lot and the story digs into it in a very pleasing way.
On the other hand David Ayers did not exactly strain his brain writing this story. It boils down to the tank gets a new crewman who sucks and no one trusts and then drives around Germany shooting Nazis. I’m not kidding when I say that’s it. There was some character development (mostly for the new recruit) but the idea of a story arc and/or three acts is foreign to David. However when you do look at his other movies you realize that is kind of his signature style. End of Watch was almost a vignette documentary and even Training Day moved from set piece to set piece like chapters in a book. I don’t think this movie really need a lot more but at least on paper it was lazy.
The other lazy part was the fact that David must have gotten a book on WWII character cliches and checked off the first half dozen from the first page. For simplicities sake I am going to name them after Saving Private Ryan counterparts. There is the grizzled but combat fatigued commander dedicated to the safety of his men with a mysterious past and education beyond his station (Captain Miller). There is the new recruit who no one trusts and manages to get some of his comrades killed (Corporal Upham. BTW I don’t want to harp on this but the Fury guy was a clerical typist and in Ryan Upham wanted to bring his typewriter). There is the loudmouthed troublemaker (Private Reiben). There is the religious gunner (Private Jackson). Then there is the token minority (this one no direct Ryan connection although he was kind of the group conscious so I’d match him with Private Mellish). It was almost laughable but there is a reason stereotypes actually work. In other words, sure these characters were grossly borrowed from other sources but they really worked.
Oh, yeah. Like I said before the action was brutal and if you have a problem with the idea of American soldiers not always acting like the paragons of virtue we like to pretend they are this movie might throw you off. There is the execution of prisoners, fighting between soldiers, engagement of prostitutes, and a scene of romance that in a different light could have been construed as rape and definitely misogynist. Also children used as soldiers. You have been warned.
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Fury Review Part 4
For all that I thought the movie was awesome. In a business that claims to want to generate excitement but then produces nothing but the blandest crap ever this movie was exciting. You get engaged with all the characters with a minimum of exposition and feel hurt when something bad happens to them. The action was adrenaline pumping for sure. The Nazis were evil, the Americans mostly good, and best of all the film had tanks in it. Win win win.
Brief story recap. Sgt. Collier “Wardaddy” (Brad Pitt) and his crew gunner “Bible” Swan (Shia LaBeouf), driver “Gordo” Garcia (Michael Peña), and loader “Coon-Ass” Travis (Jon Bernthal) get back from a battle and have a new recruit Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman) assigned to them as their new bow gunner (the last one having died). They are given a mission to go help some guys against the Germans and Norman screws up, getting another tank killed. Wardaddy tries to toughen up him up and eventually has him hooked up with a local girl. They get sent somewhere else and an epic battle ensues. Most of the world blows up.
Worth seeing? Absolutely. The only issue I really had was the blatant use of stereotypes for all the characters and that is more upon reflection. During the movie I thought they were all cool. 
You don’t have to love tanks to love this film but if you do you will be in pig heaven (in a tank. World of Tanks image from our video game t shirt category). Pacing was great, filming amazing, action awesome, and the characters well worth your time. I’d say definitely not a date movie especially if your date is the type to focus on one little thing (like humans burning alive) and they bitch about it all night. Guys film for sure. Bathroom break? Honestly I’d hold it. It is 134 minutes so it might be a bit of a strain. If you can’t go that long I’d say the dinner scene is the most disposable but even that one is good. Try to hurry. Final rating? 4.5 out of 5 Phasers.
4.5 of 5! Great!
Thanks for reading.
the Infamous Dave Inman
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