My review of the film Fury

     The film Fury, with Brad Pitt playing the tank commander, is one of the most intense WWII films I have ever seen. It very accurately conveys the total disregard for human life demanded of soldiers. In fact, the first half of the film is totally focused on this ethical controversy, by having one soldier's religious conscience against taking human life become a serious issue.

     The acting was excellent, and the scenes were very accurate. The tank battles were very realistic and conveyed the tension involved and teamwork and coordination necessary under those battle conditions. For example the disadvatageof the AmericsanSherman tank wgen confronting the more formidable German tanks was wel illustrated. 

     The very convincing relationship between members of the tank crew was achieved by having them interact with one another extensively before the filming took place so that a certain team camaraderie would become natural. All these scenes were very believable and make the film a very special one.

     However, it does have certain issues that if removed, would definitely have strengthened its believability. For example, certain scenes would have been far more convincing if they had been prepared for and timed differently.  For example, the film's last scene, where the tank crew uncharacteristically decides to commit suicide, is one of them.

     You see, it is simply asking too much of us to believe that a tank-crew chooses to commit suicide by trying to fend off a German unit using a seriously-damaged, immobile, tank, simply because the tankk-crew's commander suddenly seems to lose his sanity, and decided to do it.

    Also,  based on their personalities, given the choice, these crew members would have chosen to stay alive and fled towards safety. Especially since they had shown so much previous appreciation for staying alive, and had eve boasted on how this commander had kept them all alive during previous engagements.

     So if indeed they had a tendency towards being suicidal, then their strong appreciation for life should not have been so prominently mentioned prior to that final suicidal scene. A simple preparation or foreshadowing of this suicidal potential should have been introduced by perhaps having them mention death as preferable to living in that situational agony. Then their sudden decision to sacrifice their lives so flippantly, would have fitted in nicely. But simply saying that they considered that tank their home the same as their gone-crazy captain, so they decided to die in it as well, just doesn't cut it.

    The same applies to the sudden transformation of that extremely religiously-sensitive inexperienced soldier who had said that he preferred death rather than killing another human being. How could such a religiously-sensitive kid suddenly change into a killing machine, and even declare that he was enjoying it, immediately after a scene where he was vehemently refusing to kill a German soldier and devlaring that he preferred death to doing so? No, he had not become that way AFTER the Germans killed that German girl he had just had congress with and had strongly become fond of. Instead, he is just suddenly shown calmly mowing Germans down with the tank's machine-gun immediately after he had vehemently objected to killing a captured German soldier and saying that he preferred to die rather than to do it.

     So that was far too quick of a personality transformation and without sufficient transitional preparation to provide a rational believable motive, unless we consider the captain's order for him to do his job the reason, and that seems rather lame.

     The sad part is, that this could have been very easily fixed by having him become suddenly emotionally calloused and bloodthirsty immediately AFTER losing that Geran girl he had bonded with to the German artillery barrage. Then the sudden overwhelming hatred, along with the deep sorrow experienced, could have provided the believable motivating factor for that drastic change. So the mistake was a matter of inappropriate sequence of events potentially weakening an audience's suspension of disbelief.

     In any case, apart from those two basic mistakes, it was a great film.

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