Shia LaBeouf plays an evangelist.

Good god, this is some of the worst writing in an Oscar-bait flick. It almost felt like something Donald Kaufman threw together while flipping through his colored sticky note bookmarks in Story. The opening scene is Brad Pitt having a save the cat moment when, after brutally murdering a German, gently pats the man’s white horse and sets it free. Then at the end, in the carnage of the final battle, a white horse runs by. “This is what McKee calls ‘coming full circle’, Charlie.”

Battle scenes? Shaky cam has officially been replaced by flying clods of dirt obscuring everything. I’m no expert on WWII ordnance, but I’m fairly sure that tank shells didn’t glow green and blue while bullets were dark red. It looks like a G.I. Joe cartoon half the time. In one scene, the sun is setting when they open fire on Germans causing them to run to a barn 100 feet away. Cut to them entering the barn and suddenly it’s pitch black night. A bunch of troops are shown marching where every 5th man is carrying an anti-tank weapon, but when the battle starts they have to break the anti-tank weapons out of crates.

Typist non-combatant new guy. Jesus freak. A dilemma about shooting a German prisoner or not? Struggling over a knife with a German before one is overpowered to be slowly stabbed? The opportunity to withdraw before the final attack but knowing that it would doom other American troops? Telling typist non-combatant guy to go live? All your Saving Private Ryan bits are here, beat for beat! Now with a 5 hour brunch scene! Plus loving, tender rape (it’s okay for the pacifist to rape her because one of the rougher soldiers would have anyway!)

It’s, like, symbolic of technology vs nature.

Did you know that war is hell and that it’s dirty and muddy with muddy dirt everywhere and that soldiers are human and also civilians are human caught in the middle? Donald Kaufman sure does! He’s here to do Saving Private Ryan right, without that opening beach scene that everyone hated and with a more boring final battle.

That’s literally what Fury is: Saving Private Ryan without the beach scene and worse screenwriting 101 moments crammed in.

FABIO

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