Fury 2014

Critics score:
77 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Jake Coyle, Associated Press: It's an "unflinching" account of war -- "unflinching," in quotes, because every moment of the film is composed to grind your face into the muck and be proud of itself for doing so. Read more

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: Pitt is at the top of his game, playing a man who has forgotten whatever he used to be and has wholly embraced his role in this war. Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: A fatalism unites all of Ayer's movies, even his best film, End of Watch... This is the first of his movies in which that fatalism culminates in a state of grace I've never experienced in a war film before. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: I couldn't help suspecting that there's a pornographic leer to it all, a savage glee. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: It never scales the cinematic heights or reaches the same groundbreaking level as Saving Private Ryan, but it's intensely ferocious and relentlessly rough on the senses. You'll know you've been to war, and not on the Hollywood front. Read more

John Anderson, Wall Street Journal: Does charisma trump psychosis? That will be one of the questions raised by director David Ayer's volatile, defiantly iconoclastic Fury. Read more

Soren Anderson, Seattle Times: Depictions of war, as portrayed in Hollywood movies, can stray into the realm of the trite. Case in point: "Fury." Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Pitt, who at 50 still looks great with his shirt off, has the gruff charisma to play a dauntless soldier with killer courage and a vestigial streak of humanity. Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: Brad Pitt plays a watered-down version of his 'Inglourious Basterds' character in this disappointingly bland look at a World War II tank crew. Read more

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, AV Club: It's all very Peckinpah-or at least it could be, if Ayer had any sense of poetry. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: In terms of story, structure and look (with the exception of the gore), this movie could have been made at any time in the past 70 years. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: "Fury" wants to lead us to a fresh consideration of "the good war" while simultaneously celebrating the old bromides and cliches. No wonder it shoots itself in the tank. Read more

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader: In the combat scenes any moral ambiguity goes out the window. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: At its weakest, "Fury" contributes a frustrating percentage of tin to go with the iron and steel. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: An impressively solid World War II movie of the kind they don't make anymore. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: War is hell. It's also relentless, unsparing, unsentimental and violent to the mind, body and soul. Fury conveys these truths with brute force and lean, precise drama. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Fury is irrefutably crafted. Over two hours long it is tense going, a sturdily acted affair. And yet.... As the author of this drama, Ayer has penned a work that takes us no place new or illuminating. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: "Fury" is a brutal film that too easily celebrates rage and bloodshed to no clear end beyond ugly spectacle. Read more

Chris Nashawaty, Entertainment Weekly: While these orgies of violence are staged with tense, gruesome precision, they don't convey much beyond what we already know. Namely, that war is hell. Message received. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: Fury is a good, solid World War II movie, nothing more and nothing less. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: If memorable war movies mean something to you, open that book to a new page and add "Fury" to the list. It belongs there. Read more

Amy Nicholson, L.A. Weekly: This is an ugly part of an ugly war, and Ayer wallows in it. Read more

Randy Myers, San Jose Mercury News: While Ayer's "Fury" does mine a well-worn genre, it is texturally different in how vigorously and viscerally it laces us into tired, brave soldiers' muck-stained boots. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: War is hell. That's entertainment, folks. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: For all the extra blood and brutality, this is still a macho and romanticized war movie. Pitt serves honorably in the John Wayne role. Read more

David Denby, New Yorker: "Fury" is literally visceral-a kind of war horror film, which is, of course, what good combat films should be. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: "Fury" is about the fog of war. Also the mud. The grime. The blood. The darkness, and the light. And the noise. Always the noise. Read more

Chris Klimek, NPR: Fury is a big step up in sophistication. Where it elevates itself from being merely a believably grimy, well-acted war drama is in its long and surprising middle act. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: The movie's inner space - inside the heads of its tank battalion, and inside the tank itself - is what grabs you, as gripping battle scenes shake you. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: Within this gore-spattered, superficially nihilistic carapace is an old-fashioned platoon picture, a sensitive and superbly acted tale of male bonding under duress. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Fury presents an unrelentingly violent, visceral depiction of war, which is perhaps as it should be. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: This is an intense movie, with taut, expertly depicted tank battles and a believable sense of camaraderie among the characters. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Written and directed with exacting skill and aching heart by David Ayer, Fury captures the buried feelings of men in combat with piercing immediacy. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: "Fury" is a gripping ride all the way through, if somewhat restricted in its emotional and visual range. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: A great movie lets you know you're in safe hands from the beginning. Read more

Kristin Tillotson, Minneapolis Star Tribune: "Fury" may not be the most memorable of World War II movies, but it's a visceral ride. Read more

Calvin Wilson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: "Fury" is a guided tour through a manmade hell. Read more

Christopher Orr, The Atlantic: In a sense, it succeeds too well in conjuring its own subject matter: heavy, mechanical, claustrophobic, and unrelenting. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Globe and Mail: Fury is a war movie with balls of steel and marbles for brains. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Attention to details give Fury heft and value, as does solid acting, but Ayer seems to lose his resolve in two scenes that are straight out of a Sgt. Fury Marvel Comics episode, or maybe a Hollywood script rewrite. Read more

James Rocchi, TheWrap: Unflinching, unsentimental and never unconsidered, "Fury"'s rumbling, metal-clad exterior has real humanity, fragile and frightened, captured and caged deep within it. Read more

Cath Clarke, Time Out: Fury strains to be a Great Film but never quite gets there. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Flesh-and-blood soldiers play second fiddle to the authentic-looking artillery in Fury, rendering the film tough and harrowing, but less emotionally compelling than it could have been. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Though much of Fury crumbles in the mind, the power of its best moments lingers ... Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: It's easy to see the movie as a story of how war makes monsters out of men. But it's a good deal more complicated than that. Read more

Bruce Kirkland, Toronto Sun: Led by Pitt, who sublimates his persona so deeply into Wardaddy that you can forget about his movie star baggage, the cast is exceptional. Read more