FURY DVD (2014)

SYNOPSIS: April, 1945. As the Allies make their final push in the European Theatre, a battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy (Brad Pitt) commands a Sherman tank and her five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Outnumbered and outgunned, and with a rookie soldier thrust into their platoon, Wardaddy and his men face overwhelming odds in their heroic attempts to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany. 

MOVIE REVIEW:

Superstar Brad Pitt returns in his second military feature after Inglourious Basterds to deliver an Oscar worthy performance as Wardaddy.

It’s near the end of World War II, staff sergeant Wardaddy and his battle-weary crew, Bible the gunner (Shia LeBeouf), Gordo the driver (Michael Pena), Coon-Ass the mechanic (Jon Bernthal) and a typist turned assistant gunner, Norman (Logan Lerman) is assigned to the front line to hold a vital crossroads on their Sherman tank. Outnumbered and outgunned, will the five soldiers survive the mission?  

David Ayer who makes his mark scribing and directing crime thrillers such as Training Day and End of Watch, Fury is undeniably Ayer’s most ambitious project to date. Rather than a straight-forward attempt at unleashing heavy artillery, Fury ends up being overshadowed by poorly-developed dramatic arcs, lots of talking and covering more themes than a 134 minutes feature can contained.

Don’t get me wrong however. Fury is still very much a compelling war movie, it’s just that Steven Spielberg set the standard so high with Saving Private Ryan and Ridley Scott with Black Hawk Down. Like the mentioned titles, Ayer’s tale went to painstaking lengths to bring out the relationships and struggles between the men and the performances generally speaking were almost flawless. Even haters of Shia will agree this is definitely his best effort onscreen. However, Logan’s character of an unwilling soldier is strangely predictable and it never reaches the gravitas that it intended especially with the bulk of the story focusing on him.  

Our 30 tons star, the Sherman tank gets a few moments to showcase its brutality and power though I must add except for an exhilarating mid-sequence battle scene, our heavy weight star received too little screentime especially for war fanatics expecting generous servings of serious damage. Having said that, Ayer’s frequent collaborator, cinematographer Roman Vasyanov did a fantastic job capturing the anguish and friendship of the men as they spent most of their time in the innards of the tank.  

Perhaps too much initial expectations are lay on a war movie that features tanks. Truly, it’s not an exceptional watch but there are enough reasons to spend time with the five male actors who put in their finest performances in addition to some convincingly staged battle sequences employing vintage tanks. 

SPECIAL FEATURES:

NIL

AUDIO/VISUAL:

The DVD visual is fine with no major compression issues though the disc lacked the more superior 5.1 soundtrack. 

MOVIE RATING:


DVD RATING :

Review by Linus Tee



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