What Movies Have You Seen Lately?

Of course you have the Hollywood Movie problem with an action film with super-heroes - this was not avoided and requires suspension of disbelief. I was mostly OK with it, could have been worse. The first scene was as bad as it gets*, but the rest of the movie was acceptable - YMMV.

But if it was necessary to show Pitt as being bullet-proof for the most part, I don't see why this would have to apply to anything else in the movie *IF* the idea is to bring in realism.

I gather that Ayer wanted to bring out that the Allies were up against superior equipment in many areas during the war - the Germans certainly had that advantage in tank warfare on the Western front. That the Sherman was often a "death trap" for their crews seems to have gained in appreciation these days and the movie portrays a situation in May 1945 where Allied tanks and crew members had been worn down and were in short supply. We see in the movie the weapons that were causing this, but intentionally or not the narrative becomes "only the Tiger tank was a problem". Wehrmacht anti-tank gunners were invariably terrible shots, and were just swept aside every time. More sadly, it was an opportunity to show what a problem the infantryman's Panzerfaust was, accounting for 34% of tank losses by this stage of the war according to the link. In this movie the Germans look stupid exposing themselves with the clumsy looking things.

There are good battle scenes, if marred by these technicalities. The first one, a "rescue" mission that was more of a "tanks needed against infantry" situation, was a little too tank-heroic. But the next battle is the best, probably making the movie worth watching. A single Tiger tank devastates their force before it can be taken out; twice you see a turret go flying in the air - pretty cool. It shows that the Shermans, even improved with the 76mm cannon, could only bounce rounds off the Tiger unless they could swarm it and hit it in the more lightly armored rear. Naturally that requires a harrowing maneuver - and that they lose 3 of their 4 tanks doing it is some pretty good stuff in my book.

The final battle scene has too much Pitt-bullet-proof heroics. It starts out believably - their tank "Fury" is disabled but ordered to do what it can to protect a flank. They set it up as a decoy, a destroyed-looking burning tank showing a burning crew member draped in front- actually a dead German. I can see that working. It turns out to be way more difficult to take out than can be believed, though. The only successful Panzerfaust hit is finally shown, but it only has a small effect, killing one of them. I might be wrong, but I believe typically it would kill everyone in the tank as would any successful penetration by armor-piercing ordinance.

Quote: link

the Panzerfaust’s 14 cm diameter, 1.6kg warhead (5.5 inch, 3.5 lb) could penetrate 200 mm (8 inches) of armour. Traveling at 10,000 metres/second (32.800 feet/sec) the the molten metal jet by the shaped charge war-head was over 1.5 metres (4.9 feet) long. There are reports of Panzerfaust jets penetrating the 2 inch (50-mm) armour on the side of a Sherman, passing through intervening personnel and equipment to burn their way clean through the armour on the other side

. In any case, I felt the opportunity to show Panzerfaust effectiveness was missed.

https://servicepub.wordpress.com/2014/08/30/allied-trials-to-counteract-panzerfaust-attacks/

These are quibbles I suppose; but if realism is going to be his thing, then we get to quibble.




I won't go into the argument that attempts at more realism in a war movie just means more violence to titillate those who like it - that makes some points but I have always liked a good war movie. I'd vote for more of such movies from Ayer.




*A German officer stupidly rides a horse onto a tank battle scene he assumes is finished ... Brad's tank is not knocked out. Pitt leaps from the tank with a knife to take out the dumbest Kraut in the 3rd Reich