Immersive, Gritty but Disappointing.

Rating: 7/10 (13 February 2015)

There is no doubt about it, Fury is perhaps one of the best war films to come out in the last few year, but unfortunately for either film buffs or history buffs this film disappoints on many levels.
As a film, Fury does a good job of building the characters and the environment that they are in. This has to be the strongest part of the film, its ability to portray the war and the crew of Fury, the tank, in a human but gritty manner. Through this, it presents a number of unsettling scenes which help pull the audience into the character development and general war time environment. However, by doing so its falls into a number of cliché's that we expect from a modern American war film; young recruit, alpha dog sergeant, shocking gore, a love interest and a heroic jingoistic final battle. By following these cliché's I cant help feel that the film was already written and that too much time was spent developing the characters rather than what the audience is there for, to watch a war film.
On this, Fury mostly does an great job. The battles place you on the edge of your seat, the graphic are superb and the sounds are some of the best I have heard. Combining this with overview and crew point of view camera angles its immerses the watcher completely into that world. We also see the current fashion of attempting to shock the audience with gore. This current fashion suits Fury well as it compliments the gritty cinematography, however, I can't help feel that they have over gored it at times.
However, for any audience, film or historical backing, the film falls apart in one main area, the portrayal of the Germans. It is because of this the film will never be a war film classic and will quickly be forgotten about in the coming months. The Germans are depicted as faceless, brain dead, incompetent idiots and plays the roll of a target for Pitt's crew's machine-guns. Some scenes are more comparable to a zombie movie than a WW2 war film! There is also no need for this apart from supporting the film's American patriotic hero vibe.
In summary, Fury is a immerse, gritty and largely enjoyable film, however, the ever increasing jingoistic wave reaches a tipping point in the film leaving many bewildered audience members disappointed.