Panzer tactics: The problems with Fury

[Childress]

 

 

[SimpleSimon]

It's a movie made by guys with pretensions of fidelity but is really fairly by-the-numbers American Action-Melodrama. The action sequences in it are certainly problematic-but I think the biggest problem is that they're not very exciting and are badly planned. Why are the Germans in X treeline? What's the reason for approaching them head on? When I watched interviews with the Director and Producer years ago they both seemed to have a very foggy idea about the kind of film they wanted to make. In the end the whole film really just feels like recordings of re-enactors fighting mock battles you could see at...well...your local re-enactment group. 

By comparison Saving Private Ryan and Thin Red Line are both way better movies in just about every sense-with Directors who understood that their first objective was a compelling drama merely backgrounded by-the Second World War. That's where Fury just totally fumbles to me. It's a movie that's trying to be about World War 2...a subject far too dense to confront with a 135 minute film by itself. This confusion of setting for story and story for setting is the underline to me.