User reviews

Where to even begin.... I don't make out to be a historian, but I take a keen interest in this time period, it's a fascinating, horrendous era, this .... doesn't give any historical fact or detail, it's basically a shoot 'em up movie which happens to be set during The Second World War.

It surprises me that they didn't have someone beating Hitler up, uppercutting Goebbels in a bunker action sequence.

The Second World War, Hollywood style, some white amazing looking action sequences throughout, it's incredibly atmospheric, you can almost smell the gunpowder and feel the tension.

I hate myself for saying it, but I love this film, it's Brad Pitt and Shia laBeouf both absolutely nailing it.

If you watch any reviews, or read many of the written reviews, you'd come away thinking this film wasn't worth your time, my advice would be to try it, but know what you're getting.

It's absurd, but it's so enjoyable.

8/10.

The goofs and historical inaccuracies are everywhere in this movie. War historian Youtubers pick this movie to pieces. As they should. The inaccuracies and goofs are overwhelming for anyone with an ounce of WW2 military history knowledge. As a military historian myself, I spotted errors within the first 5 minutes, BUT, I enjoyed this movie. It is WW2 war movie entertainment only. Military historians go to ton on this movie/... the inaccuracies are overwhelming... but it is a damn fine movie. The acting is superb. Fantastic film work, and what id o personally like is the German Tiger tank in the movie, is an actual German Tiger tank being the only fully functional restored Tiger in the world.

Reviewer after reviewer criticizes this movie for its phony depictions of the war, clichés and unrealistic battle scenes. There is only one significant fact that is crucial to know when it comes to the accuracy of the depiction; Shermans were going to be your coffin in a face-off with a Tiger. If you want serious historical detail then consider watching a WWII documentary. I think the overall depictions were secondary and only serve as the backdrop for the director's real message which was the painful slow process of the relationship that was built between these guys in a tragic situation. I think Ayers did a masterful job at this. You think Brad Pitt is a second rate actor? Watch his facial expressions during the scenes in the room with Logan Lerman and the 2 women; Watch his nervous breakdowns. Watch him in the "Why are you such an asshole?" scene. Watch him as he jokes with his guys about Hitler and chocolate bars. Even with Wardaddy's personal weaknesses, by the middle of the movie you understand why these guys liked, admired and respected him, and I'll bet you do also. His timing and delivery, in my opinion, are better than Tom Hanks on this best day. Watch LaBoeuf's nervous leg, and a list of other endearing nuanced details; He plays a very convincing religious proselytizer. During the tank battle if you didn't feel like your life was threatened then you were probably on xanex. I'm not sure that there is another film that conveys this kind of claustrophobic camaraderie from a tank crew's viewpoint. If there is, I've never seen it.

When one watches this movie you need to keep in mind that not all war movies are the same and the focus of the movie depends on who made the movie, how it was made and who is watching it? Make sense...of course not but in a nutshell keep an open mind. Is it about war? Yes some of it is. It is about bonding and camaraderie? Yes of course, it highlights strained relationships in very stressful and violent situations. I enjoyed the movie and being ex military in the 3rd Armour Division you do tend to pick things out BUT I could do that in just about any military movie I have seen especially from WWII to date. Without being too specific I spotted armor and infantry tactical strategies which confused me a bit but other than that I did enjoy this movie. War is ugly and this movie does not miss that point.

People seem to think that war films are pretty hot right now, but they aren't. Having my ear so close to cinema I know for sure that there is always one or two war films floating around in the projection booths, but people are making somewhat of a big deal out of Fury, so I suppose the reel question is will this be a Flag For Our Fathers or will it make us wish for Apocalypse Now?

So lets get this out of the way now. Fury isn't as good as Saving Private Ryan, but then I don't think it ever meant to be, comparing the two movies is like saying that Saun Of The Dead isn't as good as The Book Of Eli, just because both films has similarities (in as much as they are set at the end of the world) doesn't mean they are anything alike. These are two films that are near logger heads with each other.

You see Fury is contained, and given an almost claustrophobic feel to it, the entire film is either inside or at close proximity of the tank that Collier commands. This gives the movie a focus, and a focal point. We are never given a rest from the tank and it's enforcing nature, we are given no repreave from it, just like the men themselves, we are trapped in a steel giant that is only purpose is to kill people.

To say that Fury is bloodthirsty would be an understatement, actually that's not fair for me to say. Fury doesn't enjoy itself in gore, it only tries to give us an accurate portrayal of what it must have been like for those brave men and women who faced death on a daily basis.

That's what David Ayer does really well, he controls his audience. In the opening scene we are shown Collier (Brad Pitt) ambushing and attacking a German officer, it is crude and desperate and over quickly but we can tell even then that is a man who cannot cope with the horrors he has had to endure.

Looking back there are so many moments in Fury that stand out as impressive. There is a single second where Collier shows his true emotions and it is incredible to view. Collier is a man who is forced to be a hero, he never chooses it, he wants only to survive this war.

Any war film can be impressive in it's action sequences, anyone can make loud noises and explosions and fighting, but if a war film can still shock and grip and captivate you in the slower periods, in the silences, that's when you know for sure you have an outstanding movie, and that is what happens with Fury.

Like all war movies, Fury ultimately builds to a climatic finale and truly I think it's one of the best I've ever seen, not because of the action or it's quality of visuals but because we have invested too much into the characters we have seen on screen.

The film of course would be nothing without the men inside the tank, those being Brad Pitt (who helms the best), Shia LaBouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Pena and Jon Bernthal. With these men there is no star, or main character, outside the tank the two leads are Logan Lerman (Who plays the new recruit) and Brad Pitt, however once we are inside the tank all men are equals, and dare I say it, but Shai LaBouf is actually quite good in his role. It's also always nice to see Jason Issacs on screen (hello to you).

Fury is a poignant and painful reminder of how much war can take from each of us, it is a film that never wants us to relax and we never do. Gory and gripping, Fury deserves a high spot in the history of war movies.

War is hell. It is a macabre sarcasm of Life. It perverts all normal socially-accepted truths. And, in such a hell, only demons can survive -- - only demons can know how to excel.

War Daddy (the inhuman, nearly immortal, soulless, progenitor of all destruction) says it best: "We're not here for 'Right or Wrong'... we are here to kill them."

Perhaps, one imagines that there will be peace and happiness, beyond the unrelenting violence... but, after such implacable destruction, not only of lives... but of Life... what consolation can there be?

Every chicken-hawk, war-mongering coward, should be required to witness this film. It is harrowing. It is cleansing. It teaches that violence begets violence. All that is pure and good, is destroyed by war... and it is only the purity of goodness, that restores goodness after the war is over. One wonders if it does any good to know the fact... for the demons in charge refuse to learn. And their deaths, after a time, proves nothing.

I am filled with unrelenting sadness over this film. Its perfection shall go on, unappreciated. Its unblinking honesty will go on, unheeded. For, there will be other wars (there are many, now). There will be other demons, who's lust for conquest will obliterate everything they know... even/especially the things they profess to love.

Because war is hell, and paradise does not exist in this realm... or, even after. The perversity of war... the final image... testifies to this fact. Life with war, is tainted. A poisoned well does not come clean.

This film let itself down in the end but was the first U.S war film Iv'e ever seen depicting the reality, that American soldiers were mostly mopping up Hitler Youth fanatics. Also showing that U.S troops were capable of atrocities, just like any other combatant (from other nations). The best part of the movie was seeing a real legendary Tiger Tank in Action. The one that is used in this movie (the only working one in the World), is Tiger 131 (housed at Bovington Tank Museum). Obviously in real warfare it would have smashed those American tanks to a zillion pieces. The ratio of Tiger to Sherman K.O's is 14 to 1. One Tiger knocked out 50 T-34's on the Eastern Front. The ending is the most fantastical war scene I ever seen. All of a sudden 'Fury' turns into Star Wars but way less believable. How do 100's of Waffen SS soldiers fail to beat a a severely crippled tank. It's highly unlikely that they would have been there at the end of the war (singing along a road). The SS committed beastly war crimes (true) but they were also crack combat troopers. My 10 year old boy stated the pure obvious.! "Why the hell did they not fire the boxes of 'Panzerfausts' they had at hand!" I'm sure everyone apart from the Director, was thinking the very same absurdity. Still there is more to like than dislike, so settling on a 7 rating.

I would have given this movie a 10-star rating if not for the last 30 minutes. The first 90 minutes perfectly showed how every war is ugly and disgusting. The Americans, although on the side of the justice and righteousness, were equally ugly and disgusting on the battlefield. Unfortunately, the last 30 minutes of the movie tried to turn it into a heroic story, which was not in accordance with the first 90 minutes and became a political propaganda of USA.

I can gladly say that David Ayer's World War II flick 'Fury' lived up to my expectations. The audience are confronted with the horrors of war, accompanied with some truly spectacular well-crafted battle scenes that proves Ayer's desire to create something new and profound. Ayer keeps the gritty realism he employed on his other acclaimed films only this time uses it to depict the journey of a tank crew in Germany in 1945. The performances are strong from Brad Pitt, Logan Lerman and even Shia LaBeouf has proved he has a hidden acting talent after his heyday on the set of 'Transformers'. An emotional war-drama that packs a punch with visceral action scenes and an atmospheric score, definitely worth a watch.

Fury pits a tank filled with five American soldiers at the tail end of World War II as they struggle to fight off a small army of Nazi soldiers that are closing in on them. David Ayer directs this brutal and grim war film with no romance to it. Ayer's film is grim, bloody and unrelenting and fully captures the absolutely horrific nature of war. Brad Pitt's Wardaddy is far from Lt. Aldo Raine in Inglorious Basterds, he is a man who is truly run ragged by this war. So much so that it is all the character knows. Followed by his brigade of miserable men played by the likes of Michael Peña, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman and Jon Bernthal, Fury depicts not only the atrocities of war but the ideology of brotherhood with this film. Each of these actors, especially LaBeouf, give their all in roles that are merely supporting on paper. Ayer has an extremely keen eye for chemistry on screen and he directs each of these actors to deliver performances that are well beyond anything that could be scripted. These men truly feel as if they are brothers in arms and you buy into every second of it. The film on a technical level is terrific. Ayer ditches his hand held method for still shots and dolly rigs and it pays off ten fold. The film is visually stunning, a pure grit to the desaturated frame is present from start to finish. As I touched on before, Fury is a violent war film much so in the vein of Saving Private Ryan and Lone Survivor. You are subjected to every bullet wound, every explosion of sharp shrapnel, every wound with the utmost visceral imagery. It is disturbing yet necessary for a film like this. Deapite these dark tones and brutality, Fury does feature lighter moments especially with Logan Lerman who gives a seemingly bare-bones performance as Norman Ellison that is subtle but extremely effective as he slowly becomes desensitized to all the violence around him. His performance is constantly evolving along with his character, letting us see layer after layer until he comes full circle in a bloody final act. The best way to describe Fury is by comparing it to Wolfgang Peterson's Das Boot just with a tank instead of a submarine. Its claustrophobic, up close and personal, making the scenes of harrowing violence even more effective. Overall, Fury is a brutal war film that shows war exactly how it should be shown. Its disturbing, its violent, its scary. Fury really hits a home run between the sweeping cinematography, the phenomenal performances and the near perfect direction, it is one hell of a film that shouldn't be missed.

I was blown away by this film, I thought the acting was on point (even from Shia, who I don't really like anymore since his "I am not famous anymore" stunt), Brad put in a brilliant performance & looked awesome. I didn't really rate Pena until seeing End of Watch & this, I was dubious at first.

Fury seems to have annoyed several historians, I don't know much about all that so my 9/10 rating takes none of that into account.

I loved how gritty it was, reminded me of Saving Private Ryan/Band of Brothers & depicted how brutal war can be & is.

Yes, okay, the final scenes might be a bit ridiculous & over- exaggerated but that takes nothing away from this film for me, I would recommend to anyone & everyone

Panoramic war movies with the participation of famous actors have always caught great success and ticket income. No exception is Fury, where Brad Pitt for "older" generation and Logan Lerman and Shia LaBeouf for "younger" generation are definitely the names to attract audience. And yes, they do great in this movie, pity that LaBeouf's character was not so elaborated and spent limited time on screen. All three have successfully diverged from plain "nice-guys-with-cute-faces" roles and have (Pitt, LaBeouf) or attempting to (Lerman) participate in something more versatile and dramatic.

Fury has firm expectations for this, but unfortunately the script has focused on action and battling rather than smooth logic of events. Clichéd characters and unrealistic events and solutions prevail too much, and feeling of time and space is impaired on several occasions (the time-frame between Lerman's character detecting German soldiers and first shots from their tank is especially odd). Moreover, the ending is trivial as well.

Thus, 8 points for acting and 4 for the plot from me, but if this movie has made the younger people pondering on and over the essence of war, then it has gained its end. Anyhow, there are too many movies focusing on visual effects and reasoning out there.

Strikingly far from mainstream war movie, Fury is unapologetically messy and brutal. The crude nature affects more than the visual, with the cast uttering unrefined profanity along with some military jargon. While the cinematography is splendid, it's nothing near the glossy or cinematic flair of other war movies, such as Saving Private Ryan, this is am unfiltered portrayal of war. It goes out of its way to display the gritty, sometimes intentionally overlooked aspect of war, the entire dirty ugliness of it.

Brad Pitt as Wardaddy provides a solid leader persona. He's as consistent as he could be, and with the experience of war movie under his other belt, albeit a rather different one, it comes as no surprise that he performs amazingly. It's not a macho leader character as Wardaddy occasionally has doubt, mostly heavily suppressed. Shia LaBeouf as Bible is good, displaying better on-screen flair than most of his recent ones. Michael Peña as Gordo and Jon Bernthal as Coon-Ass (classy name) round up the crew.

Peña works well, delivering a couple of good scene when least expected. Bernthal from Walking Dead has a certain niche, as an ally who sometimes looks like about to snap. Perhaps the highlight of Fury is Logan Lerman as Norman, the newly recruited crew. He's suddenly thrust into battle at its bloodiest. He gradually trades his innocence with experience of the horrid war out of necessity. Screenplay and dialogues are great, using direct, occasionally rude approach. The characters sound and act like soldiers, and it's not the usual presentable ones for cinema screen.

What gives it more depth is how it's rooted on military. From inside of the tank or down time between skirmishes, every bit seems realistic. The strategy is sound, thus giving more weight to action sequences. This one is not for the fainthearted however, as limbs will fly or get chopped off clean. The movies doesn't dwell on particular gore for shock purpose, it simply brushes fatal graphic and burning bodies as if they are normal occurrences. Soundtracks are effective as well. While most tunes are subtle or orchestra for tense scenes, a few hymns, as if chanted by the soldiers themselves, are eerily moving.

If there' are some minor complains of the movie, it's that the plot progresses in predictable way and the action in darker scenes are murky. Fury is a straightforward ride into the center of war. It's a less flamboyant, certainly not romanticized, but a damn fine one.

Fun fact, I did 120 hours of community service at Bovington Tank Museum in the UK where the tanks in this film were sourced (long, non-violent story). This is clearly a source of great pride for the museum, as they have screens inside of it playing Fury continuously on a loop. I had watched the film before my unfortunate spell there, and as I mowed their grounds hour after hour I can't say I was exactly appreciative of the history around me at the time. As I rewatch the film now, I look back on my time eating lunch atop one their many tanks (not the last functioning Tiger in the world shown in the film sadly) and realise how lucky I was to be in a place so abundant with historical relics, aswell as a place so deeply connected to a major Hollywood piece featuring a cast of incredible A-list actors. Nostalgia aside, this is a great little film. Whilst it may be lacking a little in nuance and historical accuracy, it certainly isn't lacking in excitement and gritty brutal action. Watch this already! Bovington museum needs the shout out, and to hire a full time groundskeeper at last!!!

"Ideals are peaceful. History is violent."

These words, delivered by Brad Pitt's scarred and battle-weary Sgt. Don Collier, are meant to bring some level of comfort to Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), the young man who found himself snatched unceremoniously out of the clerk's office and placed under Collier's command in the final days of WWII. Despite having no combat training to speak of, Ellison has been assigned as the new assistant driver of Fury, the Sherman tank that Collier and his men call home. Ellison has spent most of the war behind a desk, hammering out correspondence at 60 words per minute, but over the last few hours he's been gunning down Nazis in spectacularly gory fashion, and he's struggling to make sense of the carnage.

Collier offers no other thoughts on the subject, having already forgotten about the previous battle and instead thinking about the skirmishes yet to come. He's a fierce figure who inspires confidence and loyalty among his men, who affectionately refer to him as "Wardaddy." But he's also terrifying to someone like Ellison, who finds himself woefully unprepared for the demands of his new vocation. During one of the film's early battle sequences, Ellison hesitates just long enough for tragedy to occur, and his subsequent brow-beating by Collier is followed by one of the most frightening and gut-wrenching scenes ever depicted in a war film. Ellison is quite literally forced to shun his own moral code and forsake any shred of humanity he still clings to, because Collier knows that if he doesn't, everyone in the unit will be dead.

And what a unit it is, a motley crew of the highest order, comprised of a deeply religious gunner (Shia LeBeouf), a pugnacious redneck with a severe mean streak (Jon Bernthal), and a driver (Michael Pena) who drowns the filth and death in bottle after bottle of whatever booze he can find. But these soldiers are bound together by the sort of brotherhood that can only exist between men who have seen combat together: each is more than willing to die for the other, and the introduction of Ellison into their group is met with a hefty amount of resistance. The kid is an unknown, a variable they hadn't anticipated, and viewed as little more than a liability.

But after proving his mettle during a nail-biting engagement with a superior German tank, Ellison gets the seal of approval from the rest of the boys. Collier even takes Ellison with him to explore an American-occupied village, and the two stumble upon a small apartment and its two female tenants. The film takes an interesting turn at this point, allowing the audience a glimpse into the exhaustion and sadness behind Collier's rugged exterior. A bath, a shave, and a nice dinner are a welcome respite from the day's butchery, but it's the second half of this sequence that truly shows how even the best of men can be transformed by the horror of war.

Every member of the cast is at the top of their game here, even LeBeouf, whose well-documented public meltdowns feel like a distant memory. Despite being hampered by a script that regulates everyone but Collier and Ellison to skin-deep characterizations, the actors make the absolute most of it, bringing depth to characters that could very easily have been one-note portrayals. Pitt and Lerman, on the other hand, are given plenty to work with, and their dialogue exchange during the final moments of the film is one of the most emotionally gripping cinematic moments of the year.

Director David Ayer does a superb job with some of the more human moments in Fury, but his skills are best showcased in the thrilling battle sequences, the majority of which were filmed using actual working tanks from the era. Interior shots are skin-crawlingly claustrophobic, especially when surrounded by the shouts, explosions and machine-gun fire that signify the chaos of battle. Exteriors are also handled well, although the film's frequent use of tracer ammunition makes some of the combat resemble the major clashes in the Star Wars films. Yes, it's historically accurate, but sometimes it's more distracting than engrossing.

While Fury never quite ascends to the level of excellence offered by other WWII epics such as Saving Private Ryan or Cross of Iron, it remains a relentless, unflinching account of the unspeakable nature of war. To quote LeBeouf's character, "Wait til you see what a man can do to another man." When we see it, it's certainly not pleasant, and yet we can't look away.

One of my favorite movies. Amazing cast and a lot of hard feeling moments that bring this movie together. There are moments that have you flashing between emotions and you can feel the emotions from the characters.