Can anyone honestly recommend the movie "Fury"?

My dad was there at that time and he certainly never described what the Germans were doing as "scattered resistance." Yes, the Allies had overwhelming superiority by then but the Wehrmact was still functioning and capable of doing serious damage at times. That said, it was a movie, not a documentary and could have been set in Italy or North Africa a few years earlier or even in France a few months earlier and probably seemed more realistic.

Why does Capt. Miller's squad stay and fight an even more overwhelming German force in Saving Private Ryan when it is not even their mission to defend the bridge? Because of Ryan's speech? Nobody in their right mind would stay. They would leave and report back that Ryan refused to go.

It's a dramatic movie set against the background of an actual event. Neither of these movies are re-enactments of any historical event. It would not be dramatically satisfying for the squad to leave or Fury's crew to withdraw and just call in an air strike which is what probably would have happened in reality.

There's implausibilities in both films. The whole concept of Saving Private Ryan is very unlikely, something the filmmakers acknowledge by having the squad argue about their mission pretty much from the get go. SPOILER: (In Fury it's not just one tank that's sent to defend the crossroads, it's an entire tank platoon. They lose 3 out of 4 tanks to a German Tiger tank on the way.) This is very believable. Subtract the Tiger tank and you have 4 American tanks utterly destroying the German column in the end -- not terribly satisfying dramatically. With fiction films you can't just say "that never would have happened" and dismiss them -- that would eliminate just about all dramatic films.

I think the point, though, and this is spoken aloud by Brad Pitt's character, is that until a war is over, people die. A lot of people. Not just combatants on the winning and losing sides, but also civilians, which the movie makes a point of showing. And that killing over a length of time turns combatants like the tank crew into something less than human. That is why Brad Pitt and the crew try so hard to make Logan Lerman into a killer -- just like them. Their rationale is if he doesn't pull the trigger he endangers all their lives and it's true, when Logan freezes, Americans die. But the subtext is that the crew is also aware of how dehumanized they've become and they resent Logan for his humanity -- they're always trying to ruin his humanity and his ability to have real moments with other human beings like with the German girl. Brad Pitt seems monstrous and he is, but he also has an awareness as does Bible of what animals they have become. Which is why Wardaddy seems to have a death wish leading to his last suicidal stand.

IMHO Saving Private Ryan is a better movie just because it's internal logic is better constructed and its characters are better with the exception of Captain Miller and Ryan who are basically mouthpieces for ideas. Fury is not very clear/consistent in it's construction and while the acting is good, the characters don't really coalesce very well.

Even if your dad had good knowledge of what was happening then, it doesn't dispute what I've said. First of all, on the large view of things, German resistance was scattered. By April 1, 1945 allies had 300,000 encircled in the Ruhr pocket. At the same time the Soviets had reached the outskirts of Berlin and were in the process of surrounding it. The upshot being German forces were still fighting and there were lots of them. But a lot of them were cut off from each other. Then, as I have emphasized, German forces were totally on the defensive. The scenario suggested in the preview is just laughable. I have hunch that this movie is trying to cram two movies into one. That is they are trying to portray the US tank warfare experience. At the same time its trying to tell the tragic story of those who had to sacrifice themselves at the end of the war just when they could see the end of it in sight. Both stories should be told, but I think the tank warfare experience they are trying to portray is more a 1944 experience. Not April 1945.

HRE wrote:

My dad was there at that time and he certainly never described what the Germans were doing as "scattered resistance." Yes, the Allies had overwhelming superiority by then but the Wehrmact was still functioning and capable of doing serious damage at times. That said, it was a movie, not a documentary and could have been set in Italy or North Africa a few years earlier or even in France a few months earlier and probably seemed more realistic.

It's gey but so are all Hollywood war flics.

Of course its Hollywood and they are dramatizing things. I can accept that. But SPR was based on things that actually happened. There WERE small units of soldiers, outgunned, and desperately clinging on to a key beach head, or bridge at all costs on DDay + 0-7. The SPR took those real events and grafted on to it a fictional story.

In April 1945. My reading of history has never suggested that a lone tank crew had to hold its ground, outgunned and outmanned against an attacking German force that they know is coming.

It amounts to all those cop shows you've seen where the character pursues the bad guy without calling for back up and shoots it out with 20 guys. Its obviously stupid. Except in those shows the producers don't pretend its anything other than pure fiction. In contrast, with this "Fury" movie the producers seem to be going out of their way to promote it as portraying real war experience.

My dad got five battle stars. Those were awarded for participating in a "major" battle. His first was The Bulge. The other four all happened in Germany in 1945 against what you're calling "scattered resistance." That doesn't dispute what you said. Some resistance, maybe most of it, was definitely scattered. But four major battles was not scattered resistance and a lot of Allies were killed in them. There were still positions to be taken and others to be held from counter attacks. At one point my dad was caught behind German lines. If they had lines they still had a functioning army. It was still a war at that stage and not a mop up action.

But again, it's an adventure film. It's not a literal portrayal of history. You don't go Star Wars movies to see accurate portrayals of what space travel will be like.

Take your Nazism and leave the site.

You're taking one scene and extrapolating an entire movie from that one scene. Spielberg obviously wanted to start with an jarring, explosive action scene, one that would be talked about, and succeeded. But that's just the opening scene and has nothing to do with the story per se which takes up the next two hours which is completely fictional. In other words, the majority of the movie is fictional.

In Fury the last stand yes, is fictional. But the depiction of those events and all the battle scenes is very realistic. I don't know what more you can ask for. Regardless of the period of the movie it's hard to believe the Allies won every single skirmish at the end of the war. Again, if you're going to dismiss a clearly fictional historical film because every depicted event doesn't conform to written history you're not going to be seeing many movies.

Sorry but you are more or less wrong about SPR. Obviously the story line was totally fictional. But Spielberg was painstaking in recreating the types of battles that actually occurred on and around D-Day. For practical purposes he fictionalized the soldiers casually wandering through the countryside talking to each other. But basically the battle sequences were a deliberate rendering of how they took place in real life. In short Spielberg brought to life the world of DDay and the immediate days afterward. All the paratroopers scattered and looking for their units really happened. A general being killed in a glider on DDay really happened.

In contrast this movie "Fury" is completely unrepresentative of what happened in April 1945.

Maybe you say I'm too fixated on dates. But its terrible history. Because a lot of important things were happening in April 1945. Most German soldiers were happily surrendering when confronted with American forces. SS members were fighting to the death but with just rifles and bazookas. A massive humanitarian crises was happening.

Actually everything was happening in April 1945 on the Western Front. The only thing that was NOT happening was an American tank crew fighting it out by themselves against Tiger Tanks. That is how stupid the timeline of this movie is.

ryan foreman wrote:

Most German soldiers were happily surrendering when confronted with American forces. .

is 'most' = 100%?

movies don't have to show 'representative' stories - they sure would be boring if they did. THey are free to pick an unusual story that you wouldn't expect.

In fact, that's what most do. Was Casablanca representative of most love affairs? Was Gone With the Wind representative of most peoples' experiences in the Civil War?

sheesh.

But it wouldn't be boring. That is the point. There are so many compelling stories to tell. IF the storyteller knew what the hell he was doing. The last few parts of Band of Brothers for example were excellent which basically captured the time from March 1945 to the end of the war. AND representative of what truly happened.

For many Germans it was a powerful moment when they surrendered to allies and realized they were actually going to live out the rest of their lives. That would be a cool story to tell.

Anyway, this thread is now moot. This evening I saw "Fury". It turns out it was even worst than I imagined. The climactic scene was more ridiculous than I thought it would be. The very existence of a fight with a Tiger tank was absurd as I mentioned. But the stupid portrayal of the tactics used was even worst.

The dialogue was bad. The soundtrack was corny.

Brad Pitt actually did a pretty good job given the lines he had to deal with. There were some good visuals in a few of the battle scene. But that is about it.