FURY (Sony Pictures Entertainment)
Reviews have been somewhat mixed so far, but I thought there was a lot to appreciate in Fury. From my review in today's Washington Times:
'Fury" is one of the most violent, brutal, nightmarish movies you'll see all year. It is a movie about carnage and killing, chaos and madness, blood and dirt, and the will to kill. It's a war movie, one of the most intense I've ever seen, and, for the most part, it's a rather good one, even though it's not always easy to watch. "Fury" is set aboard a tank at the tail end of World War II. The Allies are pushing through Germany, taking town after town, frequently hitting fierce resistance, despite the seeming inevitability of the outcome. Despite its World War II setting and its fetish for visual accuracy, the movie is not much of a history lesson. Instead, it's a violent, often nihilistic meditation on the nature of war and the drive to continue fighting and killing to the bitter end.
This is probably not quite the Oscar-contender that the filmmakers hoped, but it's a strong, intense quasi-revisionist look back at World War II. I say "quasi-revisionist" because, while it certainly plays as an attempt to undercut the case for WWII as "the good war," it doesn't go all the way. The movie rejects the idea that there's something honorable or noble about war, but it seems uncertain about whether or not it's sometimes necessary, and, in the end, it suggests that war can ultimately provide…well, not meaning, exactly, but a kind of release.
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