NEW RELEASE DVD RECOMMENDATION – FURY

The excellent war movie, FURY, is now available on DVD which needs to go on your weekend movie watching list.

April, 1945. As the Allies make their final push in the European Theatre, a battle-hardened army sergeant named Wardaddy commands a Sherman tank and his five-man crew on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Out-numbered, out-gunned, and with a rookie soldier thrust into their platoon, Wardaddy and his men face overwhelming odds in their heroic attempts to strike at the heart of Nazi Germany. –IMDB

An outstanding, confronting war movie that approaches the subject with fresh eyes. The story is intense and claustrophobic with a lot of the action taking place inside the cramped confines of a tank. The script is tight and complex and putting a young, inexperienced soldier into a tight-knit fighting unit that’s been together for many campaigns is a stroke of brilliance. In the middle of the terror and death of war, men develop deep friendships that help them cope with the horror. FURY portrays both of these dimensions of war in a compelling drama. There is nothing sanitised in this movie. The violence is raw and honest and is interspersed with moments of tense calm. The performances are excellent and Brad Pitt’s Don ‘WarDaddy’ Collier is superbly understated. This is not an easy movie to watch and, yet, it’s impossible to turn away. There’s a real sense that we are watching the true horror of war and the struggle that ordinary men experience as they fight for emotional survival. It’s one of the best war films I’ve seen.

****1/2