DAVE WORRALL reports from London, where the film is scheduled to open this week.
There was no laughter in the audience
following this morning's press show for David Ayer's WWII drama Fury - just stunned silence, as we all
walked out feeling battered and bruised after watching two hours of the most
brutal and realistic scenes of war ever captured on film. Set in the last month
of the European theatre of war in April 1945, as the Allies make their final
push into Nazi Germany, we are introduced to the world of four tough GI's and
their new rookie, who go into battle in their tank named 'Fury'. It's dark and
grim, and portrays the horrors of war similar to that of the D-Day sequence in Saving Private Ryan - but far worse. As
the film unfolds you start to feel as claustrophobic as the crew of 'Fury'
themselves, and whilst the characters are not that likeable, you start to
respect just how frightening it must have been for real soldiers in that
situation. By the end you feel as though you have spent two hours in the tank
with them. Yes, it's that tense. The
Telegraph newspaper likens it to Peckinpah's Cross of Iron and Fuller's The
Big Red One. I agree, but there's no Hollywood slow-motion deaths here -
they are all sudden, quick, and sickening. One sequence, where three Sherman
tanks take on a German Tiger tank, is absolutely terrifying, and the final 15
minutes are a tour-de-force of cinema that had my stomach tied in knots. I was
genuinely frightened. Superbly cast, with top-notch cinematography, production
design, special effects and great music score, this is a 5-Star movie any day
of the week. But it's not for the faint-hearted.