An intensely bleak and frank look at five soldiers lives within the confines of a tank at the final moments of World War Two, Fury doesn't pull its punches and proves to be one solid war movie.
Brad Pitt heads the story as tank "Fury's" captain Don Collier during the conclusion of World War 2 and the allied forces merciless push deep into enemy territory in Germany. With the enemy more fraught and zealous than ever, Allied forces are being cut down in what is an exhausted, pointless phase of the war. His tank crew are one of the few survivors on the spearhead.
The film begins with one of their five man crew killed in action and a greenhorn rookie is recruited in to take his place. This recruit is little more than a typist, played by a fresh-faced Logan Lerman, and given the task of co-driver, so you can see immediately where our character development comes from. Lerman's character Norman is the audience surrogate and introduces us to not only the bleak reality around him but also how aggressively inhuman his crewmates have become over the months of war.
The acting here is superb. Director David Ayer apparently drove his actors hard here and you can see it. Pitt's recent career has been debatable but he is great here! Transformers star Shia LeBeouf is playing a very downplayed character role here, which is also impressive; he works well as one of the tank crew veterans.
The action and tank battles are also excellent; the film works in plenty of quiet and morose moments to exaggerate the moments of carnage in comparison. Most of Fury is quiet, bleak and consuming to watch, but the action is intense and fantastic to see. Tanks aren't often shown so completely in movies, and Fury shows quite how vulnerable humans are both outside and inside the vehicle! Whenever someone so much as pops their head out of the vehicle you start wincing, fearing some sudden shot will kill them at any moment!
It is a very effective character piece and a solid portrayal of wartime artillery in the guise of Hollywood action. It does suffer from fairly predictable story elements and progression, like I said, our surrogate is a rookie surrounded by veterans, and while you might not be surprised by the time the film ends, you should be moved enough by the acting on show that it more than makes up for these short comings.
I recommend it, it isn't rife with American propaganda, in fact it muddies what is right and what is wrong as war time so often does very well. Setting the story near the end of the war gives you a real vibe of how senseless and wasteful events truly became.
Brad Pitt's new zombie film has a novel spin on your atypical zombie film, but it turns out that's about all it has.
So our film starts out with Gerry (Brad Pitt) rescuing his family when Philadelphia is suddenly overrun by some sort of infected horde. The "undead" are swarming all over the globe in a matter of moments, and as an ex-UN agent, Gerry is asked to aid in an operation to find the source of the outbreak.
The film begins promisingly enough. We see the city reduced to chaos (and as someone from Scotland, very funny to see Glasgow shot to look like Philadelphia for budget reasons) and most of the world's infrastructure is gone. Pitt's family are safe upon a military aircraft carrier at sea while he travels the continents to find the cure.
But this is where the film loses its conviction... There is something of a rinse-and-repeat structure going on; think 28 Days Later if it ate 2012. Wherever Brad Pitt goes, the entire place is not far away from being totally destroyed, he is permanently on the edge of a wave of destruction. While this makes the film very fast paced and immersive, I can't say I felt compared to care about the people getting massacred. Like when Gerry's wife calls at a very inappropriate time, and several soldiers lose their lives, upon calling her back, they are all: "Oh hey, you called at a bad time, but it's okay I'm fine". Why not some tension from all the DEATH a little mistake like that can actually do??
I guess another problem with this lack of caring is that the "zombie" horde is 95% computer generated. In fact, if you wait through the credits you will see that under the title Zombies there are only twelve names. Funny that!
The wave of zombies comes after our hero almost specifically, and while it does make for great spectacle, there was never a point where things slowed down and allowed for the characters to breath. I really liked the soldier woman that he meets later on, but we never got to know her...
Also, how hard is it to sneak around quietly? The ending is all about being quiet, to avoid zombies noticing them, yet our heroes are bumbling around like clumsy oxen. I know you are tense, but seriously just watch where you are walking!
It is a passable zombie film, and if you haven't already seen the trailer then you have some good action spectaculars to look forward to. But as is, it is a little simple and straight-forward without much conviction for what its selling: the end of the world.
Additional Marshmallows: And who makes the first scenes where we see Brad Pitt have really obvious editing problems?? People will notice that nonsense.
*trying to not think about that song by the Fugees*
Compared to the vast majority of films released these days, Killing Them Softly is a straight-forward, no nonsense and short film; there aren't any twists, no over the top gun battles, screaming or shouting.
The film shows three down-and-out young criminals steal money from the Mob and an mercenary hitman is hired to restore the ensuing financial turmoil.
Set in 2008, recession-struck America, the film is bleakly shot and casually paced. Director Andrew Dominik (famous for another American orientated feature: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, a film I am ashamed to say I found long and tedious) does his best to shoot this bleak, loveless world with artistry, and it is short enough to not outstay its welcome.
But there is one thing that bothers me, and that is the film's intense political angle. Regardless of the metaphors and allegories one could read into the characters and their actions, the film's relatively narrow focus on localized crime stupidity is juxtaposed with archive footage of George W. Bush and Barack Obama making speeches. Brad Pitt's business-orientated hitman pessimistically snapping at what he hears, as it turns out all mobsters and local bars watch political speeches 24/7.
The film's casual nature and dark setting does wonders for the gun action when it happens. The shooting is what it is; short, blunt, unforgiving and horrific. There is one set piece were the director uses slow-motion beautifully. Rather randomly, all things considered, but wonderfully executed in this day and age where slow-mo is abused without end.
If you like traditional, no frills crime thrillers, you can do worse (and if you are looking for a cynical, pessimistic view on American politics, you'll love it!) I can't say it riveted me, the political sledge-hammering was far too blaring, but watching it doesn't feel wasteful either.
