From all the comments - I won't be watching it even for free as I have seen enough German panzers operating to bother and I just can't stand Hollywood's idea of war which invariably excludes other Nations… Cheers
Saw it on the plane back from Korea while having the Asiana stewardesses making Manhattans for me. Combined it helped pass the time on an 11 hour flight, and I didn't think it was completely horrible, but I think if I had forked out 10 quid to watch it in the Picturehouse I might be a bit 'meh' about that. What I think they got across really well was this 'can it just be over now' feeling, which I understand wasn't that uncommon. If I were bored I'd watch it on Netflix, just like a rewatched 'Battle of Britain' (what's with all those exploding planes?). There was some good stuff in Fury, some not so good. I agree that 'A most wanted man' is very well worth watching, by the way. 'When Trumpets Fade', not so sure. Oh, and anyone preferring 'Saving Private Ryan' to this one is not allowed to complain about historical inaccuracy in 'Fury'. I think that other than the beach assault SPR is a crock of sh*te. I was wondering about the swearing while watching it, but I before dismissing it, I'd like to hear the vets take on it. Remember the first person language in Robert Graves 'Goodbye to all that', which is littered with 'effing this' 'effing that'. I don't think the soldiers would have used that term, but it was all Graves could use in print. All the best Andreas
Viewing for historical accuracy I'd describe it as rubbish. Viewing as entertainment it's far worse than that. Awful film.
I thought it was total rubbish but for me it was the ending that ruined it as it was totally unbelievable. If the ending was better I might have it was ok.
I watched it again last night on a flight back from the D.R. It failed in a number of key areas but did a great job on some others. Not a bad film but it could have been so much more.
I just finished watching Fury and enjoyed it, despite a few things. The final scene was very unrealistic and I put it down to Hollywood. Fine. The real star is the Tiger Tank and the runner ups are the Sherman tanks. Loved watching the tank battle between them. Question, why didn't they pan out to the flanks right at the start? Bad choice to attack a Tiger head on. After fighting since North Africa he should have know better. In the British army a platoon of tanks is referred to as a Troop, not a platoon. It is an old cavalry thing. I thought that it was the same in the US Army in WWII. That bugged me and I thought that Brad, being a war buff, would know better. I thought that the scene with the girls added to the story, especially when the other three show up and there is a family feud of sorts. I liked the story about the Falaise Pocket. Overall: it is a good Hollywood movie where an attempt has been made to show what it must have been like. It is worth watching, especially the DVD extra with the veterans.
Character of Brad Pritt in Fury was apparently based on actions of Lieutenant William Farley, 3 Royal Tank Regiment.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/24/the-man-who-sleeps-in-hitlers-bed Extract from an article on Ton Wheatcroft; Wheatcroft owns a fleet of 88 tanks – more than the Danish and Belgian armies combined. The majority of the tanks are German, and Wheatcroft recently acted as an adviser to David Ayer, the director of Fury (in which Brad Pitt played the commander of a German-based US Sherman tank in the final days of the war). “They still got a lot of things wrong,” he told me. “I was sitting in the cinema with my daughter saying, ‘That wouldn’t have happened’ and ‘That isn’t right.’ Good film, though.”
JohnS, FYI the US Army Armored Corps adopted the cavalry nomenclature in the late 1950s or so, sometime after the conversion of US divisions from the Pentomic structure to the triangular brigade structure of the 60s. The armored divisions had tank battalions and armored regiments. There were cavalry units attached to infantry divisions, and attached to corps. They were recon units that performed such missions as needed. Most units were nothing more than halftracks loaded with infantrymen and some light tanks. In WW2, the 1st Cavalry Division dismounted and fought as an infantry division in the PTO. It kept the cavalry names you mentioned, troops, squadrons, troopers, etc. It remained organized as so through the Korean War as well. In Vietnam, it operated as air cav (airmobile infantry). Now it is a heavy armored division. Hope this helps.
Fury has appeared on Netflix. Time to get around to seeing if it's as irritating as some have said. It hasn't started well, but I'm always ready to suspend disbelief in the name of decent entertainment.
Errrmmm. dunno. Got so Christmas hammered while watching it that the only response is 'Brad Pitt has a very chiselled physique' . I'll have to watch that again when more sober - maybe see what the Fishwife thinks - the ultimate arbiter of WW2-related entertainment.
Just fast forward through that final scene when the ad-hoc SS battalion is marching on the crossroads where Fury is broke down. It's a bit much. The writers must have been inspired by watching "The Alamo", "The Wild Bunch" and "Extreme Prejudice". Either that or start back to drinking....heavily.
Thinking back on the film - I liked it even though it was ridiculous but I am hard pressed to think of a part of the movie that I would want to watch again. The cavalry charge in the Tiger battle was ridiculous. The Tiger DID have a very slowly rotating turret, but the idea of charging over open ground rather than flanking, and that none of the tanks had a 76mm gun which would penetrate the Tiger from the front (unless it was the one taken out in ambush) at a few hundred yards range was too stupid for words.