Fury.

Pretty bad ass. Total dude flick. Killer tank battle scenes.

Very well done, great acting and very few “lulls” in a movie that is over two hour long.

There really isn’t anything new in this film. You’ve seen this kind of thing before but it’s a good damn movie.

Brad Pitt is just money these days. And he is surrounded by an excellent supporting cast. John Bernthal, Micheal Pena and Shia LaBeauf are all very believable as a WWII tank crew. Although I’ve never met a WWII tank crew, I now picture them very much like these cats.

Three out of five popcorn tubs. Go see this one in the big theater if ya get a chance. If you like war movies, this one will not disappoint. It’s good, exciting and the tanks are totally bad ass.

SPOILERS BELOW______________________

The one “lull” scene comes to mind is after they have taken a city near the end of the flick and Wardaddy and Norman find a couple decent looking kraut babes to have dinner with. Just kinda random…and it’s all fine and nice until the other dudes show up all drunk and obnoxious. And yeah, I suppose I get the point of the scene. The new kid, Norman, hasn’t seen all the action they have, he replaced their buddy and they just aren’t quite happy with the way Wardaddy is treating him differently. So, I get it. It just kinda got real awkward and didn’t really advance the story that much.

Not that there’s really much to the story other than dudes in a tank kicking ass.

And the final scene was a bit of a, I don’t want to say let down, because it was a fairly epic battle sequence. It’s just the whole time Wardaddy is telling the guys do what I say and we’ll make it though just like we always have. He promises to keep them alive. Then in the end leads them into a battle they cannot win! The tank runs over a mine and loses a track so they are dead in the water with an entire SS Nazi division headed their way.

Run away, run away!

But no, let’s stay here and take as many of these bastards with us as we can. And I get that too, but Wardaddy has been built up to be such the war vet, the tank warfare mastermind and in the end, he sits in a dead in the water tank?

defiance.

Defiance.

 

This is a pretty good war flick.  Once again a WWII movie with no concentration camps but there are some starving Jews.  This is the true story about some Russian Jews that escape into the forest when the Germans invade.

 

It starts with a group of brothers.  Daniel Craig being the oldest brother and Liev Schreiber being the next oldest.  As they journey in the forest they come across other Russian Jews escaping the Nazis.  And they don’t really want to take responsibility for them, they do anyway.

 

At first the pull some old school Wolverines stuff.  You know, acting like bandits raiding villages and killing Nazis and Nazi collaborators and what not.  I mean, who wouldn’t?  But then they start to take a more humanitarian tact and start to build temporary villages in the forest.

 

As you can imagine, life in the forest is not easy.  I was complaining about not having an auto start on my car last night it was so cold.  Then I realized, at least I’m not really freezing my toes off in the forest of Belarusky while trying to hide from the Germans.

 

It is somewhat of a predictable plot.  I mean, other than the fact it is based on actually historic events…but you know what I mean.  They fall in love and take forest wives, the two brothers fight, one gets delusions of grandeur and thinks he’s like king of the forest Jews, the other leaves the community to go fight the Germans with the Russian army that is also holed up in the forest.

 

You can pretty much figure the ending out from there unless you didn’t know that 1200 hundred Russian Jews survived in the forest until the end of the war.  And well, now you know.

 

I thought the two main actors were pretty good.  Everyone else was a little underdeveloped I think.  Especially the women characters.  And there was one scene that bothers me the most.  Daniel Craig comes to the Russian army after he and Liev have had their scuffle to ask for medicine.  There is a police base where there is medicine and also a Nazi transmitter.  But the Russians won’t go there because they say there are Germans everywhere. 

 

So Liev and Daniel volunteer to go into this village, destroy the transmitter and take the medicine.  With three guys.  Three guys.  The Russians are afraid to send a unit of army soldiers into this town because there are Germans all over and yet three Hebrew Warriors roll in and kick some ass?

 

What?

 

I think my favorite part of the movie was their cool Russian accents.  Tom Cruise should watch this movie, then watch his Valkyrie and figure out the difference.  Tom Cruises plot to kill Hitler in Valkyrie was no good because the Furor was unsettled by one of his colonel’s American accent….come on Tom Cruise.

 

All in all this is a pretty good war flick.  Lots of good fighting sequences.  Some pretty good acting by the main characters.

 

Defiance gets two and a half starving Jews out of five.

valkyrie

Shut up old lady.  If I’d known you were gonna talk through the whole damn movie I would have let you fall and break a hip.

 

But no, I’m a nice guy.  So when little old lady comes into Valkyrie right as it’s starting, I help the poor old bird find a seat.  Then this hag just talks the whole damn time. 

 

“It’s so uncomfortable.”

“I can’t see.”

“What did he say?”

“He’s only got one eye.”

“Oh Valkyrie, that’s where they got the name.  From Wagner.”

 

Shut old lady, damn.

 

But that aside, it’s a pretty damn good movie I thought.  And I really wanted them to kill Hitler.  I forgot for a minute that they didn’t. 

 

I did find it interesting that I had never heard of the plot to kill Hitler called Valkyrie though.  Not that I’m a big history buff or anything, but I would have thought I would have known some stuff like that.  According to the film, there were 15 uncovered plots to assassinate Hitler. 

 

Inept Germans.

 

I thought Tom Cruise was strong as well as the supporting cast.  It was pretty suspenseful even though you know they don’t get Hitler.  It’s a good story.  One that should probably be told again.

 

It’s not often you see a film about Nazi Germany that ain’t got no concentration camps in it.  So that was nice, not seeing starved to death Jews.  But maybe would have lent a little perspective. 

 

This is a well done film.  I give it three swastikas out of five.