Kevin's Watch

Sat down expecting a simple straightforward WW2 field flick with booms and bangs, and instead found myself immersed in an - amazingly - still untried angle of approach to what is probably the most revisited story (maybe Polanski's The Pianist comes close to this take, although with an entirely different plot, depth and context), believable characters (I now like Jon Bernthal), bold depictions of white dots of beauty in a wasteland of black, and of dark, dangerous patches of doom in fields of glory and bravery; the sound score is intensely SCARY, not just the music, the whole background noises and the clip inserts on most of the battle scenes. Don't miss the end credits. I can see why Pitt produced this.

I hope this doesn't go down in the same league of other underrated similar movies, like Survivor, Lebanon, and Hamburger Hill.

Real nice surprise, too.

It's on my list. Ayer makes great films.

Does it need the 'big screen' Morning? I'd see all films in cinema's by choice but am limited by the cost alas.

Watched Fury last night, and having seen Brad Pitt in World Z War a short while ago, and had thought it possibly the most exhilarating and equally sickening movie I've seen in a long, long time, I was honestly expecting more of the same.
So I guess I was slightly disappointed with the overall pace and tone of the film. That is, until it was over ...

... then I was left with the impression of this film being an indictment of our desensitivity to the horrors, not only of war, but on graphic imagery put up on the screen.

And just like the film's use of CGI - with it's short bursts of fire interspersed with tracers of phosphorescence - I suspect an underlying theme shot through this film is to show a young man's rapid breakdown into shell shock.
A slo-mo examination of the internal claustrophobia of horror and cowardice, mixed up with the external agoraphobic escapism and delusion of heroism ... but, I'm just not clever enough to interpret this.

Was so tempted to delete my previous post because of it's over all muddiness of meaning, but then again, having just watched Training Day (2001) starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke, (written, not directed, by David Ayer), maybe my point of interest wasn't all that far off target.

Training Day has two endings. Why ?
Maybe to address moral issues between cops and robbers - which is which, who is who! Maybe just to overlay colour so that the blue scene and the green scene allow you see the yellow scene later at leisure. Or more than likely, because the language of film makes it so.
But hey, check it out, you decide.
My opinion on what message may or may not come over the screen is best left for discussion.

Read the Fury review yesterday Vizidor and was interested by your comments; my local dvd store has the film and I'll be seeing it in the next day or two, my appetite duly whetted. Will report back in due course.

Great flick.

Ok - caught up with this yesterday and I go along with the positives on it - it was indeed a 'great flick'. It was brutally dark to the point where in places it was hard to watch, and the weird way it managed to 'flip' good and evil, over and over again untill you no longer knew whether you were coming or going, was a bizzare effect. You just end up asking "Did that really happen: was that really what it was like? How could you survive that". The film portrays war as a breakdown in sanity [and humanity] on an industrial scale, and as the man said "...and we are the ones who are winning!". God forgive us all!

Excellent summary, peter.

I thought the film to be a bit of a tearjerker. If only I understood the source of the tears I might have cried along with the rest of the crew.

Glad you liked it Vizidor.

Your last comment reminds me of the time Dennis Pennis stood up at the 'Braveheart' launch interview 'Q&A' session, and said to Mel Gibson on the top table;

"Hi Mel. I just wated to say thanks - Braveheart has done wonders for my sex life. I hadn't slept with anyone for ages and then I saw your film today and slept with half the audience!"

[ I'm guessing you can see it on YouTube along with the time he told Joan Collins outside an Italian film Premiere that she "looked like a million lira".]

peter (USSM) wrote:Ok - caught up with this yesterday and I go along with the positives on it - it was indeed a 'great flick'. It was brutally dark to the point where in places it was hard to watch, and the weird way it managed to 'flip' good and evil, over and over again untill you no longer knew whether you were coming or going, was a bizzare effect. You just end up asking "Did that really happen: was that really what it was like? How could you survive that". The film portrays war as a breakdown in sanity [and humanity] on an industrial scale, and as the man said "...and we are the ones who are winning!". God forgive us all!

Nice summation. This was not what I expected and it was much darker and more brutal (not from a killing standpoint but from a humanity viewpoint). Overall a good movie though, just be prepared for the good guys to be as bad or worse than the bad guys in some ways.