Monday, February 16, 2015

Fury

Fury is an intense in-your-face war movie set in the final year of WWII with the Allies slowly moving forward through Nazi Germany against a retreating German army. There are certainly more watchable or memorable war movies, but writer/director David Ayer's attempt to highlight the crew of one specific Sherman tank produces a solid drama that doesn't shy away from the cost of war.

The film has several uncomfortable scenes including Sgt. Collier's (Brad Pitt) brutal attempt to turn his new tank driver (Logan Lerman) into a killer by forcing the private to shoot an unarmed Nazi and the crew (Pitt, Lerman, Shia LaBeouf, Michael Peña, Jon Bernthal) sitting down to dinner with a German woman (Anamaria Marinca) and her teenage daughter (Alicia von Rittberg) after liberating their town. As Ayer will repeatedly remind us over the course of the movie, these men aren't Hollywood heroes; they're soldiers who perform heroic actions when called upon but also leave great and terrible destruction in their wake.

Available on both DVD and Blu-ray extras include a UV digital copy of the film, deleted and extended scenes, a photo gallery, featurettes on the tanks, the men who drove them in WWII, and the film's attempt to accurately portray them, and a behind-the-scenes look at Ayer putting the finished product together.

[Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, Blu-ray $34.99 / DVD $30.99]

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