Illuminati-R-Us

I don't watch a lot of TV, but yesterday I tuned in to about an hour or so of Fury, a WWII drama with Brad Pitt as the leader of ab American tank crew in the late days of WW2, when the Americans took city after city, often with terrible street fights and atrocious acts of violence against their own people by fanatical Nazis - like hanging supposed traitors on streetlamps with signs around their necks proclaiming their sins.

It is a very violent film. Lots of dead bodies, blood and body parts splattering around, shrieking soldiers emanating from burning tanks, only to be mowed down by machine gun fire in spite of being defenseless. Shia LaBeouf is, for once, in a serious film role playing the youngster in the tank crew who is losing his innocence in more than one way. In one scene, he picks up the notes of a Brahms song from a piano in a sequestered flat. He starts playing the song. A young German woman living there joins him singing. They lose their virginity to each other in a touching scene, and a few minutes later she dies when a German bomber drops a bomb on a German town in order to hit American soldiers and German traitors, while he hides under his tank wailing like a little boy and being pummeled back into the tank by his comrades.

I always liked Brad Pitt as an actor, but in this role he is impressive. Disillusioned, hardboiled, unsmiling, cold, yet loyal to his crew and with soft spots here and there. His back is full of burn scars, as presumably is his soul. A very gritty, dark story, where being a hero in ridding the world from the Nazis carries a high price tag in terms of a wounded soul even if you make it out alive. I don't know the end of the film, because I couldn't stay up until two in the morning. So I don't know if the entire crew dies holding out, Thermopylae style, against a troupe of well-armed SS men or if they (well, Shia LaBoeuf, at least) are saved at the last second by the Aericans storming in. Because of course, they lost their radio in a fight, and ran over a mine, so they have to stay in their tank where they are.

Very, very dark war drama, the only way you can do one if you are not Stanley Kubrick doing Full Metal Jacket. I commend it to the house, if (given the connaisseur audience at theis board) I am not the last one who has seen it anyway.

I saw it a while ago and enjoyed it a great deal. But it's been long enough that I don't remember the ending so I can't tell you who lived or died.

You both made it further into the film I did.

Heid the Ba wrote:You both made it further into the film I did.

I watched all of it, I always see films through, but I don’t rate it very highly at all.

It seemed like a good enough story but the history and bad tactics got to me.

So were they all toast in the end? Don't worry about spoiling it, I probably won't watch it again.

I don't think so, but I can't say for sure.

I've seen it, but don't really remember, it wasn't my sort of film. In my mind's eye I recall them all hunkered down in the disabled tank essentially seeing how many nazis they could take out before they were overrun. And they are, though "the kid" survives to meet the oncoming Americans.

I thought that would be the most timely outcome. With of course a few famous last words from his boss.

I liked it, but it was a tough slog in places. I thought Pitt was much better than his similar role in the Tarantino film.

Arneb wrote: Shia LaBeouf is, for once, in a serious film role

I'm a LaBeouf fan. You didn't see the historical drama The Greatest Game Ever Played ?
His next role after Fury was also very serious, tackling PTSD, Man Down.

Ah, thanks for the correction. I guess my view was skewed by Transformers.

Heid the Ba wrote:You both made it further into the film I did.

Mir auch.