Better late than never…even though it came out in the middle of October, this “Brad Pitt WWII tank movie” is still kicking around in some theaters so it’s worth a review.
What Works: I wasn’t big on the movie as a whole, but there were some knockout standalone sequences like a climactic tank battle and a tank duel in an open field that shows you just how hard those damn machines are to maneuver. There’s also a nice scene between Brad Pitt, the youngest member of the tank, and two German women and I think the reason this scene works so well is because it’s devoid of the film’s biggest problems…
What Doesn’t: …I was frustrated with the characters played by Shia LeBouf, Michael Pena, and Jon Bernthal (channeling an even more extreme version of his Shane character from The Walking Dead), all of whom alternate between uninteresting cliches and downright repellant. I truly believe Bernthal has the talent to be an actor of DeNiro caliber, but he’s got to tone it down with the backwoods savage-type characters. His character especially is a barbarian.
What I Would Have Done Differently: I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m a little burnt out on WWII movies (and there’s still at least two more coming out between now and January), and wonder why we repeatedly go to that war when there’s been very few Afghanistan or Iraq movies. [There’s plenty about soldiers coming home and returning to civilian life, but where are the ones of them actually in war? There’s The Hurt Locker and that’s about it.] I’d like to see Hollywood (and modern literature) leave behind the cozy safety of WWII stories where we were both the good guys and won to embrace the time we’re actually in.