FURY: In real, War hardly does any good. For the film, it does great! [4/5]

“Ideals are peaceful. History is violent.”

Writer-director David Ayer’s war-drama FURY is an on-site experiment on how war inhumanly takes it all belonging to the human life and still, could make you feel heroic at the end…with its two major participants of diverse psychological establishments. Fondly named as Wardaddy in the film, Brad Pitt plays a US Army veteran in World War II. He’s been somehow busy killing Germans through all of it and the home is now his armed tank marked as ‘Fury’.

Things get harder for him when a fresh new recruit joins him with certainly no experience in the war-field. For Norman, played by Logan Lerman what matters the most is the sense of being righteous in whatever one does. In his own words, he is a soldier whose conscience is still intact. ‘FURY’ sees the casualties of war through the perspectives of both, getting concluded in a much wider panoramic view of life getting celebrated and survivors/fighters being christened as the ‘Heroes’.

FURY is a well-directed, authentically executed, visually unsettling, gut-wrenching war movie that believes not in taking sides but in transporting you to the vicinity of piled-up dead bodies, smells of air filled with gunpowder and explosives, taste of blood dripping over the face and everything else a soldier goes through mentally and physically in any war. Just as we repeatedly see the caterpillar tracks of the tank crushing mangled bodies and blast-wrecks on its way, film too crushes a lot in your inner self. Realistically done war action sequences are the big differentiators here, from the regular ‘highly relied on visual effects’ movies! You feel the pain and the coarseness of war in a larger and true essence.

FURY connects to you also because of its totally consistent and convincing humanly characters and the performers just getting it right while presenting it on screen. Shia LaBeouf surprises as an interestingly ‘holier-than-thou’ God-fearing gunner having Bible in his hands even in the worst state of affairs. Michael Pena and Jon Bernthal create most of the laughter pieces with their amusing enactments. Lerman as the newly enlisted fresher thrives in communicating the dilemma of his inner conscience. In his inhibitions at the first and transformation later into a more vigorous fighter, he holds your attention with his balanced act.

Finally, it is Brad Pitt the film finds a shoulder in to rest on. Watch him forcing Norman to perform his first kill on the warfront or leading his troop by example at every single spot. He sure wears the character with definite conviction and distinct shades in the persona like his own skin. Pitt has played something like this earlier in INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS but this one is more believable & less theatrical. At the end, FURY celebrates the complexities of war in a very authentic manner and considering the recent downpour of VFX driven war-films, it is a surprise you must visit. War hardly does any good, in real. For the film, it does great! [4/5]                            

THE MONUMENTS MEN: Forced, forged and forgettable! Historic Disappointment!! [2.5/5]

In the midst of World War II, when Hitler- the Fuehrer was busy slaughtering humanity, demolishing civilization and bull-dozing every pillar of culture here and there, a group of art-readers, historians and curators decides to locate and save the sculptures, paintings and art-materials captured in the war. Now this is based on a real story and it does sound an all exhilarating experience to relive-revive and retold on screen in a greater manner but sadly, written & directed by George Clooney THE MONUMENTS MEN dies a death of a promising idea gone lost in between. Despite being crispier in duration of the film, it looks forced, forged and forgettable event, in cinema at least.

Lt. Stokes [played by Clooney himself] forms a squad of 7 art-lovers well-known for their experiences with art and certainly not with the war to search for stolen artworks in the war field. Like most in any mission, the troop includes a couple of grumpy, fighting for nothing old men [Bill Murray and Bob Balaban], one heavy, plumpy, stout man [John Goodman], one ever-smiling young man [Jean Dujardin] and a quite somber man with vision [Matt Damon]. The more disorganized team looks, the more thrilling experience it would promise to the viewers, that’s the unsaid rule of any mission oriented plot. THE MONUMENTS MEN had it in concept but soon they land on the ground level, Clooney fails to hold the plot together. The shattered screenplay couldn’t shift focus from talking endlessly about how important it is to save those artworks to the real action on real location.

With a list of clean performers on board, beautiful cinematography, grandeur look, high-end production value, Clooney sets the atmosphere for a perfect war crime thriller but writing doesn’t support well in creating any recognizable nail-biting moment for instance. Scenes swing from one to other not much in concern to make story forward but establishing the actors and giving them a sustainable job. Humor is tried but doesn’t meet its desired end at most. Matt Damon trying his hands on different languages and every time people advising him stick to English only is one joke that gets repeated at regular. Luckily, that doesn’t go with Bill Murray and Bob Balaban. They are the only of the lot who gets maximum number of impressive scenes and some real comic ones. Cate Blanchett looks her part.

Overall, where most Hollywood films have proved themselves in extracting the inhuman catastrophe of war and the heroic efforts to save mankind to its maximum and on a larger canvas, George Clooney’s THE MONUMENTS MEN fails to grip, grasp and grab preferred attention. It is a disappointment and an average heist movie with lesser number of hi-points. Avoid it even if you’re a hardcore fan of every actor in the brigade! [2.5/5]