Fury - Pretty impressive war movie

Okay, so I’m not the biggest fan of war films – my main motivation for watching ‘Fury’ was that it was filmed in my home town and I wanted to see which bits of my village I recognised!  However, I was actually pretty glad I did.  I’d heard mixed reviews on 'Fury' – much of the negativity based around how ‘unlikeable’ the characters are.  Well, that may be true, but it was sort of refreshing in a way.

‘Fury’ itself is the name of our heroes’ tank – part of a battle-worn American division deep inside Germany in the dying months of World War II.  Basically, this tank crew (led by Brad Pit) have seen it all (and killed much of it) and, due to their seemingly never-ending battle, this has made them not particularly nice people.  I'm sure they once were, but the constant slaughter has taken its toll on their mindset and now all they know is war.  However, before we join them, they lose one of their crew, meaning a youngster is added to the mix, who doesn’t share their particular attitude to the war.

I suppose you could say that there’s not much story here.  It’s pretty much one (rather impressive) tank battle after the next.  Fury’s crew were pretty grim, but seeing as all of them have been fighting it out for years and could be killed any day, I felt that that was kind of understandable under the circumstances.  Whatever ‘character development’ comes from Brad and the ‘newbie’s’ characters.  One must learn to ‘toughen up’ and the other must relearn his humanity.

It’s probably a guy’s film, as it does rely on the action scenes to ‘wow’ audiences.  Although, maybe it was just me, but when the machine guns were firing, they kind of looked like either red or green lasers (definitely something out of 'Star Wars'), but that could just be me.

About the only time I felt it slowed down was during a scene in the middle of the film.  I’m guessing it was meant to emphasis the two main characters and the change in their attitudes, but I felt it did just drag a little longer than it should.  Plus it shows how they're 'growing' away from other members of their crew, but, even though I could - sort of - see where the script writers were going by adding this, it just slowed things down.  It felt like it wanted to be something out of a Quentin Tarantino movie, only it didn't have the snappy dialogue or real feeling of tension.

Overall, ‘Fury’ is a good watch, but you’ll probably need to be into some pretty dark and bleak war films in order to truly appreciate this.

8/10 The Force is definitely strong with this one
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