The Hunger Games - Mockingjay Part 1

The Hunger Games - Mockingjay Part 1

As a much weightier and more satisfying installment than its predecessor “Catching Fire" we see here in “Mockingjay” a far more focused hand in the directing chair in the third part of the THG franchise. “Mockingjay” has very little reliance (in my opinion) on the sometime overabundance of technical visuals, bells, and whistles gimmickry to keep pushing the film’s story along.  Instead we see in this Part 1 segment a film more emotionally grounded and more humanistic as it weaves itself into depths of genuine dire, dark and consequential events to the films’ overall plot and subplots.

“Mockingjay” worked for me much, much better as a 2 hour solid and well-rounded piece of entertainment even though it’s clear that this Part 1 effort was stretch a bit thin as a financial “money grab” by splitting “Mockingjay” into two separate parts.

Above all, it is abundantly clear since the debut of the original film “The Hunger Games” to now “Mockingjay Part 1” is that the essential strength of this entire franchise as a huge money maker is singularly derived and rest on the splendid acting prowess of Jennifer Lawrence. She seems uniquely gifted in being able to create far more genuine feeling, raw emotion and real passion for her character “Katniss Everdeen” than I believe few other working Hollywood actors could have done with the same material. And as if her winning the Academy Award Oscar as Best Actress in “Silver Lining Playbook” and another Academy Award nomination in “American Hustle” wasn’t already enough proof, Jennifer Lawrence proves once again here as well that she truly is the absolute real deal when it comes to being one of best natural actors and her uncanny ability to inhabit her roles.

I have no doubt she will be giving many fine performances in various film projects in a myriad of diverse roles for decades to come.

3 – 1/2 Stars

Whiplash - Review

Whiplash – Review

J.K. Simmons. Who? J.K. Simmons; you know the actor with the avuncular smile, somewhere around middle aged, always wearing wool vests with the clean shaven face and head who does the “Farmers Insurance” TV spots. You know the same actor who played psychiatrist Emil Skoda for five seasons on TV’s “Law and Order”. The same actor who played for seven seasons on TNT’s “The Closer” as the by the book Assistant Police Chief Will Pope. Who also had supporting roles in several successful feature films such as “Spider Man”, “Juno”, “Up in The Air”, and the recent reboot of “True Grit”.

Still don’t know who he is? Well you will know who he is and likely very soon when you see his picture and hear his name being announced twice in early 2015, once as the nominee for Best supporting Actor and the next time about 6 weeks later in the form of…….. “And the Oscar goes to”.

In the film “Whiplash” J.K. Simmons delivers what is assuredly the front runner’s performance as Oscar winner as “Best Supporting Actor in the incredibly entertaining, potent, smart, powerful, emotional piercing and most viscerally intense film you will see this year.

“Whiplash” feels like a high octane rhythmic action sports drama thriller. In reality it is more of a benign story largely revolving around two principle combatants - characters - actors. The first is by Simmons character a man named Terrence Fletcher, the musical teacher at a fictional highly prestigious New York school called Schaefer Conservatory where specifically he is in charge of its jazz band assemble class.  From the onset to say he is a “driven man” as a regimented task master is the understatement of the year.

Physically he is a mixture of Darth Vader in human form with taut fit muscles dressed stylishly in all black with a form fitting T-shirt and who has eyes that offer the most frightening glances you swear he could actually melt metal. His personality? Well to say he has a unique talent to use profanity in a myriad of creative ways would also be an understatement as well. For him political correctness has never even entered his brain much less been uttered by his lips. He is the General George Patton of music with a singular manic determination and focus to illicit the very best from his students to transcend perfection itself; even if it kills them. Summarily and metaphorically speaking, watching this film if one of his student were to die in practice you are not quite sure Fletcher would even show a single moment of concern. In fact Fletcher is probably more likely to stop conducting just long enough to drag the person’s body to the hall way and walk back in to continue practice as if nothing ever happened at all.  

The second actor and largely the lead character is actor Mile Teller, a 20 something ambitious musical jazz virtuoso on drums named Andrew Neyman. He too is obsessed with music as he wants to be exactly like his musical idol in the form of the real life legendary drummer Buddy Rich. He has practice and played to Rich’s music for years to the point he doesn’t have to read any sheet music to preform it as he can perform it all from memory.

In the beginning of the film we see the very first day when Fletcher and Teller have a chance encountered when Teller is practicing alone. With  what was an obvious effort by the film Director Damien Chazelle to mislead us just a bit, its clear Teller has heard of Fletchers tough reputation but who leaves from their first meeting with a sense of embolden confidence  things may be a little different with him and Fletcher as a potentially young gifted drummer. But when they finally do come together for the first time in a formal practice, the initial compliments and kindness were definitely misleading’ as the sparks fly literally across the room. Teacher Fletcher is in charge now and he makes it abundantly clear that he is not interested in anyone who just wants to be the best. He wants flawlessness every single second.

“Whiplash” while it has some structural flaws, most notably there is simply no way that Fletcher could have gotten away with his teaching methods without serious legal or physical pushback long before Andrew comes to his school, this fictional drama film is still a brilliant piece of acting with amazing and incredible big band music with a crackling pulse pounding execution to it.

I (Lester) played five years in my high school marching band as first chair trumpet. This film took me back to that wonderful feeling I use to get when seven or more different instruments can come together to make a wonderful unified orchestral brass and drum beat  music sound; it got my juices flowing and yours too even if you are not a fan of swing jazz. 

For me words fail immensely to adequately describe just how everything down to the minutest detail converge into one of the best film climaxes I have seen all year. The last 20 minutes were exciting, bloody, sweaty, hot, sexy, stylish, scary, intense, joyous, heartbreaking, exhilarating, and altogether just simply powerfully to watch, hear and  experience. The ending will in deed leave you speechless.

J.K. Simmons has always been a very good actor in every role I have seen him in. But in “Whiplash”, he is nothing short of great acting brilliance. He singularly provides one of the best performances you will see all year regardless of the category. Also, Miles Teller as Neyman appeared to actually be playing a lot of the drum performances in the film as well and was equally great in measuring up to the task of being both a victim and emotionally driven as well.

Finally, the editing in this film is top notch Oscar quality as well as it more than matched up with the real jazz rhythms and the actor’s energy; there were several drum solos that were nothing short of being suspenseful. In short the editing coordination of screenplay words to the visual and music interplay was pure cool genius.

Whiplash" as a story is a metaphor for a persons’ religion verses what constitutes a persons’ addiction. And with that I highly recommend to you all very, very much that this film is well worth you seeing for its many virtues including its notable frenzied shotgun adrenaline story, as well as for its acting, action, strong direction and really crisp galvanizing music.

"Whiplash" is one of the top 10 films I have seen all year as it hits all of the right notes from beginning to end.

4 Stars

Interstellar - Review

Interstellar - Review

Director Christopher Nolan makes a huge cinematic leap as he moves away from the fictional earth bound canvas of the tales of Gotham City and the Batman Trilogy to the mysteriously deep galactic travels of outer space in the highly anticipated mix of science fiction and science reality based film entitled “Interstellar”.

Starring Academy Award winners, Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Michael Caine and one actor I won’t mention, the story of “Interstellar” starts out in the not so distant future in the agricultural bread basic region of the United States. We see a former test pilot turned corn farmer named Cooper working hard to earn a living with his two children and his father. What is apparent to him and other farmers in that area around him is that the land is rapidly devolving into a modern day “dust bowl” and the globe as a whole is moving towards total agricultural collapse. Also Murphy, Cooper’ adolescent precocious redhead daughter, keeps insisting there are mysterious ghosts in her room to make the family matters daily lives even more complex. 

What in deed they do soon discover is that it is not ghosts in her room but a mysterious code signal effecting their home – her room that later reveals itself in the form of a GPS coordinate to a Top Secret compound headed by a brilliant scientist named Dr. Brand played by Michael Caine and his equally brilliant daughter Dr. Brand also played by Anne Hathaway. Together they essentially sell Cooper on the idea that the earth is dying and that they have discovered a possible passage way through a worm whole that appeared outside the orbit of Saturn which by their calculations will catapult them to a galaxy far away to the real possibility of 12 sustainable planets for human to leave earth to repopulate itself and save humanity.  Cooper knows that it is a real chance he might not survive and if he should survive he may not make it back to his daughter who tearfully pleads with him to “stay”.  But Cooper is drawn to the risk as something worth taking to save humanity. And with that Cooper and his Chuck Yeager persona in tow, along with Dr. Brands daughter and two other scientist, collectively they saddle up to their rotating space ship “to boldly go where no one has gone before”. And it is what that decision the “Interstellar” space adventure begins.

Actually it does not begin and that is the problem. What does in deed begin at almost 3 hours running time is an endless dialogue involving quantum theories, string theories, worm holes and black holes, space-time continuum, transcending dimensions, rotational spins, Newton’s ideas on gravity, talkative plodding  concepts and finally endless passages that try to explain some connection of human’s innate love for one another with modern physics.  The result is a film extremely over burdened with a story line that should of had a prerequisite requirement for all viewers before spending $18 to see it in IMAX, they should all have to go to Oxford England to attend an entry level physics theory class headed by noted Professor Stephen Hawking’s on the “The Theory of Everything” just to understand what Nolan is trying to say here, which by the way is in fact the title of a movie coming out in the next few weeks that actually may be a better film to watch.  

Nolan’s Interstellar is so tightly undergirded with science talk that it is to the point of being something equivalent to intellectual strangulation on your ability to both breath and comprehend at the same time in such short order with its clunky screenplay. Sometimes, I felt my head was going to explode from just trying to follow along conversations that simply made no sense. Why? Because Director Nolan (in my estimation) invested way too much of his time and effort to tell you all of the science aspects of this story in the film, not realizing it would almost torture the life out of the film with this obsessiveness to provide every single theoretic detail, without giving as much a vestige of real weight to the human component of this story. Meaning? Specifically, what was missing from its plot was how does this story reassure me in as human my rightful place in an expansive endless universe to live – survive as a species. And unfortunately Interstellar does not do this at all.  And while Nolan has some moments that were to the naked eye visually fascinating, majestic and even awe inspiring the overall story of the film especially in the second half felt like science interstellar “hoo - haa” that simply made no connection to me at all.

Nolan was clearly inspired by “2001: A Space Odyssey”, but he should of learned from that effort and other science fiction greats like Alien, that sometimes moments of silence and not saying anything can make a film more intriguing. Here we are saddled with abundance of too much everything including too much loud music that at times overlapped the story to the point the music was more nuisance than pleasurable to my ear. Compounded all of this with scenes that over and over and over again try to explain every single thing the actors were thinking, that it far too often provoked a response from me that was "huh?" rather than “yeah”.

Ultimately, Interstellar has the scale of a blockbuster-sized film, but it simply does not have the written story to match this strong cast’s ability to deliver an emotional story and one that connects with its audience emotional needs intact to the real science that was put in play. 

So, you ask after all of that should you see “Interstellar?” My answer is an absolute resounding yes you should see it, just as long as the next two words behind its title say the words “Red Box”.

.

2 - 3/4 Stars

Nightcrawler - Review

Nightcrawler – Review

Someone famous once said, “Sometimes greatness is achieved and other times it is thrust upon you. He should have amended that comment with, “sometimes it can make you a creepy video camera man for the eleven clock news”.  Such is the case in Jake Gyllenhaal’s nothing short of stellar performance as Lou Bloom in the psycho thriller called “Nightcrawler”.

The entirety of the film takes place in Los Angeles and mostly at night. At the onset we find the central character Lou Bloom; a young but physically gaunt man with his eyes that seem to be bulging literally out of their sockets engaging in what is clearly a petty crime of stolen construction tools and precious metals. He then proceeds to drive across town to peddle off his stolen merchandise to a construction site foremen who is clearly reluctant to buy them but does so at a “take it or leave it” price. Lou, who already has proven he has a charming gift for bartering and conversation seizes the moment to also ask that same foreman for the chance of a full time job, but with a role of his eyes the foreman sarcastically replies “why would I hire a thief?” 

That same night while heading home he comes upon an auto accident where his innate curiosity causes him to pull over to see what has happened. As he walks towards the car he notices a cameraman named Joe Loder filming the event while the two police officers try to extricate a woman from a burning vehicle. When the ambulance arrives Lou walks back with Joe to his media van where he learns Joe is a freelance cameraman for local media. Joe explains that his line of work can be a good job for the right man as long as you got the right equipment and you get there first to secure the “if it bleeds it leads” kind of video. It’s at this moment in the film and its overall plot the words “happenstance”, “coincidence”, “luck” and or “fate” never becomes truer. Joe has an epiphany; the once a few minutes ago Lou the petty thief has now become Lou crime scene videographer.

After securing a cheap camera and reading ferociously anything about doing his new line of work on the internet, Lou goes from being a crime scene annoying nuisance to cleverly being the one guy who is now getting the cutting edge kind of video. He is especially valued by a flailing local network that Lou also coincidently chose to sell his prized nightly crime scene videos to. It also helps in the story that the news director named Nina (Rene Russo) is both as aggressive as Lou is but is also struggling in her job with low ratings. Over time they both see in each other the potential in getting their careers on track with Lou’s relentless aggressive ability to get the video first better than anyone else.

From here on, the film’s story evolves into something more than watching an ambitious cameraman. What we see in Lou is a highly intelligent man who is learning his craft in leaps and bounds. He also start to learn that sometimes he can be both the first on the scene as well as the one who can help “shape” the story more dramatically when no one is looking to secure higher ratings and ultimately making himself more indispensable as someone to be trusted and reliable.

“Nightcrawler” overall transpires into the realms of the power of cerebral manipulation and the dysfunctional ethos of modern media. And through both of these elements we see how it affects the principles Lou, Nina and Joe together, but also a young unemployed naïve man named Rick who Lou manages to cleverly convince he could use him on the sly cheap as an intern for $30 a night.

The movie overall itself is good with a few moments of greatness. Clearly, first time Director Dan Gilroy borrows heavily stylistically wise from Director Michael Mann with his expertise of filming people, crime and night time in big city Los Angles (i.e. Collateral and Heat). He also, with a few moments early in the film, writes as well as his brother Tony Gilroy who directed one my favorite films of all time “Michael Clayborn” which was nominated for Best Picture in 2007. The writing screenplay for the most part is highly cerebral, top notched and eerily fascinating to hear with the one exception of the film seemingly getting a little flat for a few minutes around the 40 minute mark.  But what stood out for me more than anything structurally was what Director Gilroy delivers in the last 30 minutes of the film that in my estimation was some of the most suspenseful and spin tingling work I have seen all year. I literally had goose bumps on my arms from the slow buildup of tension.

In the end, the star of this film is glaringly obvious in its 2 hour running time and it is the performance of Jake Gyllenhaal’s. He is eerily powerful as he channels some unusual inner charisma that I have rarely seen in any young actor before. He is audacious, mesmerizing, powerful, and while sometimes his Lou felt like a bit of a farce, he always manages to keep his character tightly wrapped in an acting canvas of being creepy, amusing, smart and all too real. He also used his bulging eyes as a subliminal prop giving off the appearance of some nocturnal predator who never sleeps, always looking at you for a weakness – always on the prowl.  And it with those eyes you can never tell as a viewer of this film when listening to what Lou had to say was it something you could trust as being true. Was he lying to you or was he simply someone who doesn’t like you. Ultimately, his character is emotionally incapable of revealing anything about himself through his eyes because he doesn’t want you to know; it’s just naturally who he is.

Obviously I don’t have a vote for the academy award nominations, but if I did (as it stands now) Gyllenhaal would be the first name I would write on my 5 name ballot for Best Actor. He gives the best performance by an actor I have seen this year and dare I say it, you will not find a better performance for all of 2014 – Jake is just that good here.

3 – 3/4 Stars

Birdman - Review

Birdman – Review

Imagine this. You are formally dressed while entering a room where you see one small table with layered linens and one matching chair. You proceed to sit down to examine what is in front of you.  You snap your napkin to your lap as you quickly discern with your educated eye that slightly towards your right is one empty crystal stemmed glass and a single corked bottle of Chateau Laffite Rothschild by its side; one of the world’s most expensive wines at $23,000 per bottle. You know now you must savor this experience.

Also, directly in front of you is one small plate of white fine china with four small gourmet appetizer crackers equally covered with appropriate thin slices of French Foie Gras and an equal accompanying of Norwegian thin slices of Sockeye Smoked Salmon, with all four appropriately covered with one teaspoon of $1,500 an ounce of Russian Beluga Caviar, topped with a modest amount of capers and a smidgen of lemon zest to round it all out. Doesn’t this all just sound deliriously delectable? Or maybe not?

You see, this imaginary scenario I concocted for you is about consuming something most 95% have never experienced on their pallets much less seen before. And no matter how specifically, in and of itself, something is uniquely different by its elements of wordy exclusivity or providing specific descriptive details of the exorbitant prices attached to it, there is nothing automatic about it that will usher in some universal euphoric culinary wave of delight for these creative tiny pricey morsels. To be expected, some will always find they love it and sing its praises; others will simply say they like it, others will say it’s just OK and finally some will simply they hate it and it is over rated from the word go. But as the old adage always states, whether it is art, wine, food and or personal taste, it is always in the eye of the beholder.  And after viewing actor Michael Keaton’s latest effort and genuine Best Picture contending film entitled “Birdman” in my estimation it will beckon a response more from a culinary point of view than an appraisal of established forms of art, touching on a range of possible palatable reactions from movie goers who will see and appraise it with a measured matter of their own personal taste.

First, going in to the theater to see this, know from the very get go it has moments of genuine strangeness to it. In the first few minutes you see Keaton’s character levitating in midair in his under wear having a conversation with his subconscious in the form of one his previous fictional character he use to play. He also apparently been able to mysterious secure in real life the same telekinetic power that character had to move objects around about the room (with no obvious explanation). Keaton’s role is of a man under duress and torment of his own making playing a man named Riggan Thomson who is a washed-up actor and who is slightly neurotic who once played an iconic superhero named ‘Birdman” in his youth. Older now in his sixties, he is consumed with his own ego and a myriad of family chaotic troubles. He is also simultaneously battling, while in the midst of all of this turmoil, the need to mount one last ditch new approach to his troubled career by financing and acting in a play on Broadway that he wrote as the final bid to reclaim his past glory.

Shot in what felt like real time from beginning to end we see Riggan battle with other actors egos, bitter critics, a daughter as his assistant who is in sobriety and a dysfunctional range of staff and production mishaps. Overall, thematically, “Birdman” is about something most people in their overall arch of real life will struggle with at some point, specifically their egos incased in an aging older body with worries of self-doubt while at the same time finding a need to secure a sense of ones’ own aging self-worth. In Riggan’s case, he believes that in spite of this gauntlet of naysayers and emotional impediments, his obsession to getting his play off the ground will somehow help find that magical path again of making him a national household name once again.

I found Birdman to be inventive, fascinating, refreshing, directorially wild, daring, ambitious and thought-provoking while trying to explore the differences in what constitutes too often ephemerally popularity verses what really lends itself to more meaningful prestige and lasting professional integrity. How this film takes us on this self-evaluation journey is at times a bit unusual for the almost 2 hours running time, but still nonetheless a fascinating and brilliantly acted journey in deed.

Shot with a documentary feel to it, we get to examine hour by hour under a visceral microscope the nerve racking anxiety that occurs for an actor seeking the glow of a successful finish stage production with a live albeit unaware audience underfoot. Actors do get paid (sometimes) lavish salaries, but here we get to see the stress they incur in finding that right mix of writing, directing, acting and assemblage of administrative support into pulling off a successful production that is compounded even more by Birdman’s Riggan angst debilitating travails and emotional frailties all the while he tries to make something gloriously imaginative.

I can’t say much more than this, “Birdman” will be in fact nominated for Best Picture. I also can’t say it’s the front runner either, but it will surely get several nominations for Best Actor for Keaton, Supporting Actor for Ed Norton and Emma Stone respectfully, a Best Original Screenplay nomination and a nomination for its Director Alejandro González Iñárrituis as well.

If you decide to see Birdman, know going in, just like that imagining of you sitting at that table with those 4 small appetizers and wine for you to consume, it is an acquired taste going in to see it and probably an acquired taste evaluating what you saw coming out.

4 Stars

John Wick - Review

John Wick – Review

“BOOM…………..BOOM – BOOM”. You hear a lot of that sound in the new action thriller genre starring Keanu Reeves entitled “John Wick” which is also the name of  its lead character as well. And with way too many “booms” to ever begin to keep any reasonable count, former stunt man turned Director Chad Stahelski uses his previous experiences of making the impossible look possible by providing us a movie that is dark but is also sly and fresh with just the right comic touch in this reimagining of the assassin hit man type. And while John Wick does not measure up to any of the Bourne films or Natalie Portman’s “The Professional”, Reeves and the Director together  create a singular new character who is exhilarating to watch in that metamorphic Bruce Lee, Sonny Crockett wearing thousand dollar Georgio Armani suits kind of way.

Early on with, we see John alone in a state of deep mourning, as the love of his young life has just died from a terminal illness. He spends his days being filled with nothing but emptiness and while he seemly has a very luxurious life in a very fashionable modern home, he’s still a man steep in raw grief.

One day a package arrives at his home where we discover inside is a Beagle puppy; a final gift from his wife who knew he would quote “need somebody to love”. It’s from this gift we see some measure of light and life return to Johns eyes. He is starting to move on with his life as he and his new friend begin to bond, especially with their daily morning excursion day trips in John’s prized classic Ford Boss Mustang 302.

While heading home one day he pulls into a gas station to refuel. Convenient to the story a car with some young men pull into the station as well that we soon discover are both the son and associates of a major Russian mobster in the local New Jersey area. They initially seem harmless, but we already know when one approaches John about him selling his car and John politely stating, “she’s not for sale”, we know from this point on things are going to get bad. And of course what ensues next you can see coming a mile away as out convenient Russian mobster did not to take John’s no for an answer. That same evening they break into his home steal his car and kill his dog.  What happens next is watching a man unleash a holy hell of pure unrelenting - uncompromising revenge violence to any and all those involved or who dares to get in his way.

“John Wick” the film show cases the lead character both as an assassin and a flamenco dancer whose physical moves in the numerous fight scenes are at times as equally lethal to his hyper flair usage of guns. And when he is “dancing” with his trusted 9MM in hand, together they offer up a series of stylishly pirouette moves meant to titillate and mesmerize as he shoots at an endless array of nefarious human targets to dispatch. John just doesn’t want to kill, he wants to end life sexy, with charisma, grace, style, panache and a bit of cheeky humor.

Let’s be clear, the violence in John Wick is raw and at time as visually sick as anything you will ever see in a film. But while this is make believe fictional violence and if fictional violence doesn’t rub you the wrong way, John Wick delivers huge big ups thrilling action beyond the typical run of the mill bang-bang shoot them up. John Wick is more like an extravaganza in violence filled with an abundance of credibility and gorgeous detail.

Reeves, while playing once again to simply lure us in the angelic exterior quiet type with an eventual volcanic eruption to come later, is awesome here. And while similar plot wise to Denzel’s Washington “The Equalizer”, Wick may seem withdrawn and reluctant as well, but once his blood has been spilled he runs cold with a focused stern determination. Not so much with a simple rage of anger flowing in his blood stream, but more as a stoic man whose hematological substance is much closer to being pure radioactive fuel. And just like radioactive fuel in its natural managed state can be a peaceful benign source for good, once spilled and unleashed to maximize the death of its designated enemies, it can kill with stealthy deadliness with designs to wanting to destroy the entire environment around its target as well.

With the last 20 minutes seemingly to run out of steam a bit, John Wick is still pure kinetic giddy visceral entertainment who becomes our hero measured by how much death he creates to entertain us. And while everything about John Wick is totally preposterously absurd given the level of carnage, it’s a fabulous absurdity with a wink – wink slickness to it.

This film’s plot is basically an “I must get revenge” thriller at all costs effort. The difference from previous films of this type is JW is an epicurean assassin; one devoted to the pursuit of killing with a quiet sensual pleasure as would any expert food critic who pursues similarly his passions for the enjoyment of eating good food. They both do their jobs with a comfort and ease of effort.  But to relegate John Wick with a title of being merely an expert killer would be an insult to this very satisfying film. Instead, just like a violin or piano virtuoso within the known arts or a mathematical prodigy or science wizard, John Wick was naturally born to end life like a maestro with a baton

“Boom……………Boom – Boom”. Do I dare say it; in a purely oxymoronic kind of way, John Wick is real entertaining homicidal fun.

3 - 3/4 Stars     

Fury - Review

Fury – Review

Brad Pitt is once again leading a unit of Americans in their fight against Germans during World War 2. The difference from his Inglorious Basterds role is this story is a fully realized dramatic story of him and the four men under his command in the claustrophobic confines of a tank they call “Fury”.

Once again we are reminded that war is hell. It is also dramatically illustrated in this effort as a conflict surrounded by mud, filth, blood splattering at every turn, gore and death at every turn, gas and exhaust fumes suffocating the breathable air itself, bodies discarded, crushed, burned or mangled and soldiers with faceless expressions  that barely resemble anything being normal.

The film starts out rather impressive with I can only conclude was an homage to the film “Patton” as we see a lone soldier coming into view out of the fog. What transpires next is a stark reality reminder that no matter what we read or hear on the 6 O’clock news or hear from the accounts of soldiers returning home that overall once again war is hell, as well as being hell up close and personal.

With “Saving Private Ryan” as the template for war films Fury is unique in that it doesn’t really have much of a large moral theme or real sub plot mission to speak of. This film is dutifully dedicated just to the these five men in their tank they call home and how it has in some way made these valiant men both patriots and zombies to some degree. They know they are fighting for their country, but the ravages of war has crushed almost the normal life out of them. They (unlike Saving Ryan Ryan) intend to kill everyone with a ruthlessness that seems to step just a step beyond the role to fighting with honor and duty, resulting in them fighting a war that is hell and a manmade soulless hell of their own making. They both hate and love each other to some degree which is starkly illustrated with the displays of hate and conflict whenever they are all collectively outside the tank and love and affection for each other whenever they all are inside of the tank. In some ways the tank helps to provide them some solace as an obvious escape from civilization or lack thereof.

What’s good about the film first and foremost is Pitt once again as the Sargent gives a very fine albeit bleak performance as a man who has had his spirit stripped away. He’s on auto pilot and intends for his men to operate accordingly; if they are going to war with him they kill without question. Pitt also carries himself quite believable as someone who has natural leadership skills and while he initially seems very similar in many way to the soulless scared face Sergeant Barns character in the film “Platton”, his Sergeant “Wardaddy” on the other hand seems to be soulless only in certain moments, eventually showing what remaining vestige of humanity he has left bubbling up in the form of deep affection for the well-being and protection of his men.

What was a clear drag on the film was a 20- 25 minute scene involving Pitt’s men arriving in a small German town to what I can only describe as their breakfast at Denny’s moment. There were some fried eggs and coffee, two attractive German girls serving them, piano playing and singing and some light hearted discussions on sex, but beyond that this particular scene seemed so out of place to the rest of the film I’m still not quite sure what the director was trying to say there other than a possible momentary rewrite that did not really work.

The tank battle and close encounter fighting scenes were very impressive, though I had a real problem with the visual tracers of the armament fire looking more like something more suited to a laser gun burst from a George Lucas Storm Trooper in “Star Wars” with their unique red, green and blue after glow. Also the director does manage to give the entire film a feel of authentic detail and real war weight.   

Ultimately, Fury is good looking, well-acted and keeps you drawn and connected to these five brave souls plight of trying to stay alive in a war that is just weeks away from ending. Where it misses its mark a bit is the story construct doesn’t always seem emotional connected to some greater good in the form of a final victory. These five men will have to be dragged out of their tank and convinced at gun point the war is actually over, otherwise they probably will never stop killing and fighting, which is duly illustrated by a common line uttered by all one time or another in the tank, “Sergeant, this is the best job I ever had”.

3 -1/2 Stars