A Brutal War Movie With Brad Pitt And Shia LaBeouf Is Trending On Netflix
AppleTV may be betting a lot on their big budget, expansive follow-up to the acclaimed "Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific" miniseries with the WWII drama "Masters of the Air," but this week the war drama that is making waves is actually on Netflix — and it came out a decade ago.
As we've seen time and time again, Netflix can give underseen titles a second chance at finding a global audience — and maybe even lead to a continuation of the original story. This time it is the 2014 war drama "Fury," starring Brad Pitt and Shia LaBeouf, that has audiences enthralled.
The film was written and directed by David Ayer and is without a doubt his best movie. "Fury" follows the crew of an American tank fighting their way through Germany during the final weeks of World War II, focusing on the heavy casualties suffered by American crews when engaging in combat against German tanks. The film features a cast that also includes Logan Lerman, Michael Peña, and Jon Bernthal. It was also a hit, grossing over $200 million out of a $70 million budget. Now, "Fury" is finding a second life thanks to Netflix viewers.
A gripping war film
It's easy to see why audiences are connecting with "Fury." For one, it has a fantastic cast, and the dynamic and relationship between the characters in the film is fun and compelling to watch. Unlike many war dramas that focus on big squadrons engaging in battle in open-air landscapes, "Fury" is a rather intimate and enclosed film. Most of the story takes place inside or just around the titular tank, and you quickly feel the isolation and the toll it is taking on the characters. As our own Witney Seibold once put it, "Over the course of 'Fury,' audiences witness several characters losing their souls to the violence, each one becoming far too accustomed to death. Humanity will fall, swallowed by the muck of violence."
It's not only the characters who go through hell, however. Brad Pitt once spoke of how arduous the process of filming was. Not only did he build an entire backstory for his character, but he also compared the rehearsal process to getting a root canal: "It was really an amazing experience the way it was structured to break us down, to make us understand hardship, make us be cold, wet, hungry, physically exhausted and then gave us tasks that would bring us together, bond us, discover each other's weaknesses and strengths and establish a pecking order."
You can now see how that effort paid off in "Fury," now streaming on Netflix.