Fury 2014
I never saw this at the theaters, but wound up buying the Blu-ray on sale after seeing it got pretty good reviews. It is an action-filled World War II tank crew movie. While there is a good story and characters, it is mostly a way to see a Sherman tank crew in action. The story itself is fictional, taking place in the last weeks of the war as the battle-hardened allies start taking German territory. The characters are a little grittier than typical and the action is particularly brutal, but it is pretty effective. It seems like maybe there aren’t that many tank movies out there, but having a crew of five makes for a perfect size cast. The actors all do good jobs, with Brad Pitt as the commander and kind of surprisingly, Shia LaBeouf as another of the seasoned crew, with Logan Lerman as an inexperienced clerk thrown in and trying not to screw up. Michael Pena is also good as another crew member. Even if it doesn’t tell much of a story other than war is terrible, it is well executed.
The extras on the Blu-ray are pretty good, showing that they used actual Sherman tanks and even the last operational Tiger tank to make the movie. They also interview a few World War II tank vets who talk about what they went through. The Sherman tank was a decent design, but the German tanks were much better, putting them at a serious disadvantage. They made improvements as the war went on, but never really came up with a heavier duty tank to even things up.
Written: 09 Sep 2018
Owned on: Blu-ray, Digital