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Fury Movie Discussion.


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Have you ever seen a film where initially you didn't much like it but after you leave the theater it continually plays on your mind until eventually your opinion of it has flipped 180 degrees? (that was my experience seeing Apocalypse Now in the theater.) Fury had the opposite effect on me. The further I get from the film the more the 'geez-wiz' fun stuff fades and the more problematic aspects emerge into the foreground. The screenplay almost seemed to be arguing in favor of promoting human depravity in wartime. That you're 'not doing war' right unless you're screaming obscenities at the enemy and shooting them in the back after they've been captured.

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All the negativity. You guys really suck.

You almost wrecked the movie for me before I even watched it.

Yes, does the scenes play out like they would in real life. Heavens No. But really, do they in any movie. Really, Maybe Band of Brothers, since they were trying to mimic the real stories.

But, let me think, what other movie has focused on Tank warfare and gave you so much camera time on Armour and tried to delve into the mindset of the crew and so forth. (actually there has been a few). None even close to as good as this.

Just two comments about the final scene which is easy to insult, since you all want to. There is comments about how impossible it would be for the germans to be so stupid about coming up on the crossroads like they did. All I will say here is do some more reading. I have read actual accounts at the Battle of the Bulge of just as stupid stuff. There was plenty of incompetent small unit leaders by this point in the war. Now if you want to complain, by April 45, I would say it would be almost impossible to even find a German unit like that, that was anything of a coordinated fighting unit.

The second comment about the fact they would never have stayed and fought. Again I will disagree, it is in the realm of possible happening. There is many studies that show how soldiers at some point somewhat give up on the fact that they will make it alive through a conflict and will do things that endanger themselves because of their present mental state. And normally it is for the saving of someone elses life. Which if you recall they were to stop the germans from getting into their rear area troops, which would be a blood bath.

Very likely, no. But have men sacrificed their life's for others before . We all know the answer.

 

I'm sorry, sly, but seeing Brad Pitt firing a .50 cal without even looking where he's firingt at and blowing the heads of a two-man German LMG... well man, sure you can find a WW2 anecdote where something like that happened.

 

My main problem is that you can't make a "good" WW2 movie where you put together every single one of those unlikely occurrences (allegedly that is what the screenplay writer says about it) and try to keep an straight face. You could also make a "novel" by picking up randomly the least common  English words from the Merriam-Webster dictionary index. Would be a 500 pages novel - featuring every two pages very nice illustrations of tanks - but that the text was made up of sentences like "Alsike yogh futhorc kalian?" - all of them perfectly valid English words - be a good one?

 

Another analogy that might give a better sense of my negtivity. Think of Chevy Chase' National Lampoon 2? or 3? when he takes the family to Europe. I'm pretty sure that, at some point in the past, some American tourist in Europe has experienced one of those out of context problems. Now, you collect all of them together by brainstorming friends and family and you make one cracker of a comedy. But, make in the movie feature some real WW2 tanks, some war crimes and some dead civilians, and presto! you got a VERY SERIOUS war film. Or at least, that was the way it was marketed: with those stories of **** LaBeouf not having a shower for a month to get "under the skin" of US WW2 tankers.

 

If Fury works for you, all the power to you. My personal take is that this is an overrated film, which will be probably remembered by Brad Pitt playing very much the same character as in Inglorious Basterds but without the irony. 

 

EDIT - removed the hyperbole.

Edited by BletchleyGeek
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Now, I never said anything about it being a great film. But with all the comments from the forum , I did not waste any effort to see it until it came out on disk. And for me, I found it interesting as to what they were trying to tell in a story (you know, movies are just story telling. No one ever said stories have to portray real life perfectly.)

 

 As for Brad Pitt firing a .50 cal without even looking where he's firing at and blowing the heads of a two-man German LMG...

Nah no rebuttal - but once again what have you been watching - because I notice that crap in almost every movie or TV show.

I just love to look at the end of the barrel and see it moving or giggling around all over the place but the person they are portraying using it is a marksman.

While in my head I am thinking, they be lucky to hit a elephant at 10 yards with how much that weapon is moving.

 

I love trying to take movie scenes and placing them in this game and see what the game results would be. Now we know it is not very close generally.  ( but you know what. I have managed to get a few to somewhat work from different movies with setting parameters just right and I think I can get one or two from this movie also.)

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...I notice that crap in almost every movie or TV show.

 

I gotta say that I agree with you. For instance, I deeply love Person of Interest. It's a seriously good show with now and then some great acting. But it just slays me how the good guys never seem to miss a shot, but the bad guys can't seem to hit the broad side of a barn if they were shut inside. I mean, using fully automatic weapons spraying bullets all over the place, breaking lots of glass and stuff, but not hitting our heroes...or at least not fatally. However, every time a good guy pulls the trigger, a bad guy goes down. Okay, so all of that is more or less a movie tradition—think of almost any of John Wayne's movies. But I do wish they would tone it down just enough to lend some credibility here. And the same thing is true of nearly all action movies/tv shows.

 

Michael

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...My main problem is that you can't make a "good" WW2 movie where you put together every single one of those unlikely occurrences (allegedly that is what the screenplay writer says about it) and try to keep an straight face. You could also make a "novel" by picking up randomly the least common  English words from the Merriam-Webster dictionary index. Would be a 500 pages novel - featuring every two pages very nice illustrations of tanks - but that the text was made up of sentences like "Alsike yogh futhorc kalian?" - all of them perfectly valid English words - be a good one?...

 

 

 

Well said, BG.

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I’ve tried to avoid saying anything about this movie because I know a lot of people liked it but I can’t help myself... it was terrible. Sorry, but it was.

 

Whether or not it's historically accurate is just for WWII nerds like ourselves but it wasn’t even a good movie if you ignore all that.

 

At the end of the movie I thought “what do I know about the central characters?” I came up with one was religious, one was Mexican and one was Brad Pitt. That was all. The narrative consisted of a load of WWII clichés strung together via some tanks. (They were lovely tanks, mind. I have no problem with the tanks :))

 

Yet it had pretentions of... well... something. Horses. What was with the horses? We start with the (somewhat unlikely) vista of a lone German officer on a white horse crossing a post-apocalyptic landscape only to be leapt on by Brad with a knife. This was not a great start to a “serious” WWII movie. But I kept with it. Next, they’re talking about dead horses (which I always find odd when you’re seeing dead humans in large numbers every day). Perhaps I’m missing something; but then the white horse is back in the closing scene! (You see its feet go past when the guys hiding under the tank) They just really wanted to say something about horses but I don’t know what it was...

 

Then there were all those unlikely moments. I’m not sure whether Brad riding atop his tank through the streets as “unlikely” but if he did it in a game of CM I’d be screaming at him to button up. But have no fear: The inevitable German sniper (and boy, he was inevitable) was far keener to shoot the civilian (after he’d given the German position away, it must be noted) than any of the GIs including Brad as the aforementioned tank commander who likes to sit on top of his tank in the middle of an urban street when enemy contact is expected. Lucky they set up the MG42 in a stupid position too; that got one the Americans.

 

And while we’re on the subject of the town scene, I realise that these were rough round the edges kind of guys (and I’ll even forgive them being too old as the photos show these guys tended to look older than their days) but to me they just seemed to hate each other at that dinner. Surely they would have had some kind of bonding, mutual respect or brothers in arms kind of thing going on?

 

As for the execution of the prisoner? Well, yes, I think we know that allied soldiers almost certainly killed prisoners in cold blood from time to time; war is a rough dehumanising experience. But it still wasn’t a convincing scene. I couldn’t believe he’d get the other guy to kill him in that way for that reason. Perhaps I’m wrong. Perhaps it was the fault of the acting or the director. I dunno but I didn’t feel convinced.

 

And that happened just after a scene in which the Shermans closed range on an infantry position when surely they’d standoff and lay HE on it? That’s what I’d do. Isn’t that the point of the Big Gun on your tank? That scene also features American soldiers firing from the hip. I know that used to happen in movies a lot but I thought it was a thing of the past (at least since SPR).

 

The Tiger? (And we are getting all WWI nerdy now but I’m hopefully among friends ;)) Well the fact it was real Tiger made little difference to the film. The SPR “Tiger” or some CGI would have done just as well. They smoked it: That was good. Just as well it was a lone-unsupported-Tiger . Were there a lot of those about? Can’t help thinking that was another “unlikely” moment. And how they dealt with it? Well I supposed if you don’t mind losing most of your platoon. Good job the Tiger didn’t just back off and keep the range longer while preventing them from out flanking it. Good job it decided to charge too (although at least it kept buttoned up, unlike the Americans). Yep, I’m being nerdy but again I wasn’t convinced by the scene.

 

And the big finale? It’s hard to defend (no pun intended). They stay because it’s their “home” (although it almost certainly wasn’t). Don’t they want to see their kids again? Well actually, as previously mentioned, I don’t think we ever found out if they had any. The battle and the behaviour of the SS battalion? Think that’s been covered before.

 

So, it was just a war movie? Who cares about historical accuracy? Well as many have said, it was a rare film about tank warfare; it really should have tried to get as much about that right as it could but it didn’t. War films aren’t very realistic? They’ve all got errors? Well that’s not a good enough excuse really. We’ve all got a number of unbelievable things we’ll put up with before critical mass is met and sadly, this one crossed the line with me by a long chalk.

 

But I’d forgive all that if it was just a good story, well told. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t convincing on a historical or dramatic level and the story was, as I say, just WWII clichés strung together. In another life I review movies (but not normally WWII movies I’m relieved to say) so I see some howlers. But this was my worse (or at least most disappointing) movie of last year.

 

But hey, if you liked it, that is your inalienable right...

 

Sorry for the “hating”...

 

;)  

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I'd have to agree with just about everything that John1966 writes. I'd add a few thoughts though. This isn't a history lesson, and I didn't expect it to be one, especially in light on what I had read here. But it would have been nice if it at least shown a bit more respect for real history. For instance, at the very beginning a legend appeared on the screen that read more or less, "In April 1945 German resistance was hardening and becoming more fanatical." Nope, sorry. Once the Rhine was crossed and the Ruhr pocket had been reduced, resistance in the west pretty much collapsed. In the east it was fanatical to the end, but that was because that was the kind of war that it had been in the East. In the West, except for some pro-forma resistance and some small pockets of more determined fighters, the Germans couldn't wait to surrender. Anything was better than capture by the Soviets. The farther and faster that the Western Allies penetrated the country the better because that was land and people that would not fall under Soviet rule...or so they thought.

 

Okay, so it's a tale, a story, a fiction. How well does it hold up as that? How well does it stack up against other movies, including movies in other genres? I guess I would say that it wasn't really bad...but it wasn't all that great either. Maybe I'd give it five and a half stars out of ten. Maybe. In other words, really mediocre. As John wrote, it is mainly a collection of clichés strung together. It reminds me of nearly every war movie I've ever seen, at least of those made in English-speaking countries. But the thing that really gripes my ass, is that its purpose appears to be to make us sentimental about war while claiming to do the opposite. That's just plain dishonest.

 

Oh, just one more thing and then I'll shut up...for a little while. The battle at the crossroads? Nearly everything about it was wrong, both in sum and in its particulars.

 

Michael

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I gotta say that I agree with you. For instance, I deeply love Person of Interest. It's a seriously good show with now and then some great acting. But it just slays me how the good guys never seem to miss a shot, but the bad guys can't seem to hit the broad side of a barn if they were shut inside.

Michael

One of my favorite scenes in Justified.  One of the bad guys keeps going on about the 21 foot rule, if within 21 ft he can stab you before you can draw and fire. So he has a showdown with deputy marshal Raylan Givens charges, trips in hole he was digging for his dog and falls on his own knife.  Could Raylan have drawn in time?  We'll never know because good ole boy Danny Crowe turned out to be dumber than expected.

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And while we’re on the subject of the town scene, I realise that these were rough round the edges kind of guys (and I’ll even forgive them being too old as the photos show these guys tended to look older than their days) but to me they just seemed to hate each other at that dinner. Surely they would have had some kind of bonding, mutual respect or brothers in arms kind of thing going on?

 

You were only just complaining about the movie being 'a string of WWII cliches'... yet the biggest deviation the movie makes from traditional WWII cliches is one of your moans, methinks you might be hard to please...

 

So, clearly they respect Pitt's character as a leader and a fighter, but he's also not the man they think he is - he speaks German too well for it to be merely 'a tool of war', and as man who derides his comrade's religiosity he sure can place a biblical quote, he waits until they are no longer watching then weeps and vomits in a corner alone - and instead of looting and whoring after a conquest he secretes himself away from the others to 'play house' with the enemy and the new guy and clearly resents their loutish interruption to leer at the women and **** the place up like pigs. They're angry he seems to think himself above them, that he still secretly percieved himself to be better than the savagery around him - hence they drunkenly arrive to remind him of the time they turned thousands of Germans into hamburger, and the indelible marks they all share which bonds him to them more closely than the civilized decent world Pitt still tries to hold on to. To say they didn't care for each other seems to contradict the actual script - the army is like a family, you don't get to choose your comrades, and the familial bond does not automatically mean you always get along well personally with them, that you never quarrel or resent - quite the opposite.

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So, clearly they respect Pitt's character as a leader and a fighter, but he's also not the man they think he is - he speaks German too well for it to be merely 'a tool of war', and as man who derides his comrade's religiosity he sure can place a biblical quote, he waits until they are no longer watching then weeps and vomits in a corner alone - and instead of looting and whoring after a conquest he secretes himself away from the others to 'play house' with the enemy and the new guy and clearly resents their loutish interruption to leer at the women and **** the place up like pigs. They're angry he seems to think himself above them, that he still secretly percieved himself to be better than the savagery around him - hence they drunkenly arrive to remind him of the time they turned thousands of Germans into hamburger, and the indelible marks they all share which bonds him to them more closely than the civilized decent world Pitt still tries to hold on to. To say they didn't care for each other seems to contradict the actual script - the army is like a family, you don't get to choose your comrades, and the familial bond does not automatically mean you always get along well personally with them, that you never quarrel or resent - quite the opposite.

 

That's a pretty good observation that I would largely agree with. Pitt's character is one of the saving graces of the movie most of the way through. I think it was exaggerated in some ways that I could do without, but I suppose that comes down to a matter of taste. Maybe the producers (of whom Pitt was one, in case it passed unnoticed) thought that without the exaggeration it would have passed over the heads of an average audience. I would have accepted the risk myself and had more faith in the audience. In fact, one of my gripes about the whole movie is that nearly everything was exaggerated out of proportion, and that moves it from drama to melodrama. And further, it is my opinion that in the long run that actually weakens the impact of the story because it tends to deaden the senses. At the end, when the camera slowly pulls back to reveal the scores of German dead around the tank, we're meant to go, "Wow, that's awesome!" But to me it was just a final absurdity.

 

Of course as always, YMMV.

 

Michael

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one of my gripes about the whole movie is that nearly everything was exaggerated out of proportion, and that moves it from drama to melodrama. And further, it is my opinion that in the long run that actually weakens the impact of the story because it tends to deaden the senses.

 

That's fair, some of the events certainly felt overtly contrived to me as well (I knew the girl was a goner the first sound of incoming). Other parts stretched historical plausibility without quite completely breaking it, though to some degree I think this is forgivable when the authenticity of the product is so high in other ways (sound, notably).

 

I watched it in close proximity of my viewing of the new Russian film Stalingrad... next to that Fury is an unimpeachable masterpiece, its sins and vices are no different from say, Saving Private Ryan, or Platoon.

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... a scene in which the Shermans closed range on an infantry position when surely they’d standoff and lay HE on it? That’s what I’d do. Isn’t that the point of the Big Gun on your tank?

They were rescuing a pinned down platoon. Biffing HE around liberally might not have had a good outcome. Also; shock and awe, baby. Shock and awe.

 

That scene also features American soldiers firing from the hip. I know that used to happen in movies a lot but I thought it was a thing of the past (at least since SPR).

Since you're being so free and easy with the But That's Not Historical! grizzle, you might want to looking into Marching Fire. It's a thing.

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Name one war movie that not once strays from historical accuracy and stays 100% true to facts.

(and yes, since someone complained about Pitt not looking down the sights when firing, those tiny things count too)

 

IIRC 'Das Boot' had the rivets wrong but was correct apart from that. I guess 'Downfall' is also as right as you can get with the known facts.

Just two films I can think of not a complete list. :)

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You were only just complaining about the movie being 'a string of WWII cliches'... yet the biggest deviation the movie makes from traditional WWII cliches is one of your moans, methinks you might be hard to please...

 

 

 

 

But that was one of the most cliched scenes! The quiet interlude; the young man losing his virginity; the girl being a goner; the guy in charge more educated than you thought; he weeps after they've gone... Did they miss any?

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But that was one of the most cliched scenes! The quiet interlude; the young man losing his virginity; the girl being a goner; the guy in charge more educated than you thought; he weeps after they've gone... Did they miss any?

 

That wasn't my point and you should know it - the script deserves some praise for showing such intense animosity between comrades, rather than the typical mawkish best-of-buddies-everyone-loves-each-other schtick - and more, that you were specifically complaining about cliches in one sentence, then the next moaning about their absence, it's about consistency - for you the film is apparently damned if it does and damned if it doesn't. It can't logically be both too cliched and not cliched enough simultaneously. Choose one.

 

For me, judging on three categories: grog-factor (props, detail, minutia etc), production (sound, effects, music etc), drama (script/screenplay, acting, verisimilitude, etc), I wonder 'what soldier's movies are better overall than Fury'? Das Boot, Platoon, Thin Red Line... anything else? Saving Private Ryan? Great movie, has same flaws and strengths as Fury (fraudulent/implausible but 'enjoyable' final battle included), but with a fake-ass Tiger... after this point it all gets highly subjective - I love some Cross of Iron or Dirty Dozen as much as the next man, but they are lesser movies. Yes, Fury has definately benefited from being made well into the 21st century! But so?

 

I would, as a committed grog who nearly switched the film off after the opening text, heartily recommend Fury - the best parts are super-scary effects (those AP rounds... can we get some o' that in CM? Watch that PTSD) and really good performances from the whole cast - best role by Pitt in AGES. And a real Tiger. Of all things, the music was possibly my least favourite part - the extraordinary events for me were offset significantly by the overall authenticity of the props, effects etc; and the cliches not tedious because they were executed so well by the cast.

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It can't logically be both too cliched and not cliched enough simultaneously. Choose one.

 

 

 

Hmmm. Not sure where I said it wasn't cliched enough. I'm going to take a punt (and I could be wrong) that you're referring to me saying that their lack of comeraderie was the cliche I was missing. No, I'm not citing that as a missing-but-necessary cliche. I'm saying that I found their lack of comeraderie difficult to believe. That's slightly different. I just thought that that their relationship as a crew wasn't believable. I assume you thought it was. OK, if you buy it then no wonder you enjoyed it. I didn't (on either count).

 

Did you really think the final battle was "enjoyable"? OK...

 

Incidentally, I preferred all the movies you cite above. And I'll add A Bridge Too Far (1977) as long as we're only talking about the dialogue among the senior staff. Wasn't so keen on the action.

 

I'd also add A Walk in the Sun (1945), All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Ivan's Childhood (1962), Come and See (1985) and Downfall (2004). Although with Downfall I'd add the caveat that they did rather gloss over certain elements of the battle for Berlin (for, perhaps, understandable reasons).

 

Thinking aloud, Attack (1956) is also very good (and shows you don't need authentic Tigers to make a good movie - they really are rubbish) and The Cruel Sea (1953) is, of course, one of the best war movies ever. Stalag 17 (1953) and The Colditz Story (1955) are also great but I'm not sure I count POW movies.

 

Actually this could go on and on... I'm thinking of all those Brit war movies of the '50s now. And the '40s, come to think of it... God, there's a lot of them and a shed load of them are great. But if I go on, this'll just be a film list... ;)

 

Did I mention The Halls of Montezuma (1950)? [Oh, just stop it - Ed]

Edited by John1966
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IIRC 'Das Boot' had the rivets wrong but was correct apart from that. I guess 'Downfall' is also as right as you can get with the known facts.

Just two films I can think of not a complete list. :)

 

Oh trust me, with the degree of pickiness that people are using to rip this movie apart, they'd find flaws in even Das Boot.

Things like in the ending scene where planes fly straight overhead and yet manages to strafe the ground beneath them at the same time...

 

The difference is that this movie was made by Brad Pitt and is a Hollywood movie with a few hollywood clichés.

But it doesn't deserve the hatred it's getting in this thread.

Stalingrad is my favourite war movie (or rather anti-war movie) and it's considered a very good war movie by most, but even that is riddled with flaws and clichés.

Edited by Oddball_E8
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