The Fury

The 70s were a simpler time. A time when all cars exploded when they fell into rivers; when there was nothing homoerotic about two bronze-skinned men panting heavily as they emerge from the primordial sea; when ESP training was part of the curriculum in every private girl's school; when girls simply masturbated to relieve acute anxiety; when you could bang an intern in your van while wearing your wedding ring; when white shoe polish was the hair dye of choice. In other words, nothing's changed.

A delightfully schlocky concept played rather straight, which is one of those things you don't know you really needed until you're getting it. A few cool tricks with changes in perception, amusing Kirk Douglas and a nihilistic finale were enough to keep my butt in the seat. Sure, I could mention that there's enough Bad Stuff here to turn off a critical viewer, but I don't want my head to expl///////

The Fury refers to my fury over this being so front loaded with action (Kirk Douglas running and gunning, doing almost naked Parkour in downtown Chicago like it’s nothing for his 60 year old frame, and car chases) than almost nothing happens as it takes on the pacing of a Cassavetes movie with none of the substance, until Cassavetes once again explodes on the screen.

This is an odd, inconsistent effort from De Palma. It feels like it is two or three films mashed together, and everyone acts like they are in different films. Some decent concepts, visuals and acting are let down a bit by the ropey plot and an overall lack of focus. That said, it still has enough charm to make it worth seeing. Douglas is as watchable as ever, and Cassavetes oozes sinister malevolence in every scene he is in. Perhaps it needed more splattering.

Good grief...

Weaker DePalma and strange that he cashed in on the telekinetic power craze after directing the definitive movie in the sub-genre ("Carrie"). More movies need an exploding important independent filmmaker in them though.

Like Sisters and Carrie, this draws immediate connections with Cronenberg's body horror features. Despite its full commitment to genre conventions, The Fury looks pretty awesome in its total belief in the power of beautiful and shocking images -- last shot, the images the gir receive and watch from Robin, the constant use of fast editing.

This was probably seen as weak sister to Carrie at the time, and in some ways it is. Howard Hawks said a good movie has three great scenes and no bad ones. The Fury has three great scenes (a psychic vision on a staircase, a slow-motion escape on a street, and John Cassavettes getting blown to bits), but numerous bad ones.

They sure don't make 'em like this anymore — by which I mean casting an elderly man as the spry action hero and making him wear short-shorts for half the movie. Bring that back! Put Liam Neeson in some short-shorts in whatever his next slice of action schlock is, you cowards!

Kirk Douglas gives this De Palma film more credibility than its B-movie execution should allow. It's a neat concept of two telekinetically linked people and a dad trying to rescue his son. As with other movies with half the cast split up, it's just hard to tie everything together but keep things interesting in the meantime. Fav scenes: Stevens spinning Lewis around; Irving making Cassavetes blow up in the end

Treading the line between thriller and horror, this is the kind of horror I prefer. The performances are really good and the supernatural element is built up really well. DePalma's direction is strong, which puts it above a lot of what I'm watching this month, making each scene worth watching on its own terms as well as building up a slow crescendo to the climax. It's two hours long but felt a lot brisker than many shorter horror movies.

A companion piece to, and perhaps retread of, De Palma's previous success with Carrie. It is familiar but audacious, which often translates to heavy-and-ham-fisted, but in this instance the combination of trope elements - telekinetic teens, shadowy malevolent government agencies, paranoid man-on-the-run escapades, and grotesque body horror - are a lot of fun, and it's interesting to see Kirk Douglas and John Cassavetes share the screen.

Superior visual flair elevates a tired, copycat story. One hypnosis scene has the audacity to seamlessly blend TWO characters' subconscious and conscious minds - four levels of existence - and the audience GETS it. John Williams' most underrated score, and three fantastic lead performances, make this a memorable film experience.

Weird in an akward way, full of curiosities such as Kirk Douglas appearing again in a hokey version of Israel, telekinesis used to make John Cassavetes explode, a girl who is hysterical in almost every scene from mid-movie onwards. What else? Excessive use of slo-mo, irrelevant musical score, psychic hate crimes against Arabs. It has a plot, really, but it still seems like a random scattering of Hollywood drama, horror, sci-fi and action.

"The movie that draws the deepest line in the sand between De Palma apologists and De Palma maniacs." - Eric Henderson

Zzzzz. Watch Cronenberg's "Scanners" instead.

De Palma plays with the fear genre and an extravagant budget in this overlong but generally fun story of psychokinetic destruction crammed with lavish cheap thrills galore. Cassavetes blows up *real* good.

Not bad precursor to SCANNERS.

A weird combination of Carrie and 3 Days Of The Condor. A decent pick if you're a fan of 70's films and want to see a lot of rising actors (like Dennis Franz). But it's no masterpiece; the final hour really drags at times. Watch on a DVR that lets you play at faster speed to get past the slow parts.

waste of time movie. Why legend actor like Kirk Douglas starred in it, only he knows.

A couple of great scenes, but overall a forgettable action movie with a weak plot

Pretty strange movie overall, but I liked it. Kirk Douglas elevated the material. He was a great screen presence.

It's like Scanners... only it's directed by Brian De Palma. That explains everything that is right or wrong with the movie.

Awkward mish-mash of a tale with secret agents and psychic horror is poorly edited and doesn't really work but doesn't go where I expected either. Kind of reminds me of the first X-Men movie but with more misery and blood. Scene with Kirk Douglas evading baddies in Chicago was the highlight.

It started of very promising as a spy thriller, than goes into an interesting tale about teenagers with psychic abilities, loses a lot of momentum in the second act, cause almost every other scene is exposition plus it fails to intertwine the two plotlines successfully and ends well with an absolute insane ending. The script of this is an absolute mess, it's De Palma's directing and Cassavetes menacing villain that safe this. Kirk Douglas tries to walk by on his old school charm, but is miscast.

It's not a good sign when you find yourself laughing at the end of a film when it's meant to be dramatic.

Uhm. Well. Interesting ending.

de palma, yablans, hirsh: adeta yeni hollywood eskiyi yararak geldikten sonra "n'aber?!" diyor gibi :) de palma hitch aşkıyla yanıp tutuşmadan önce harika bir yönetmen olmanın ötesinde, jenerasyonu içerisinde en farklı, en felsefisi olduğunu gösteriyor. keşke çok iyi teknik işler çıkarmak yerine '80'lerin ilk yarısına kadarki haliyle film çekseymiş zira izleyici-sinema ilişkisi üzerine bu kadar incelikli film çekebilmek herkesin harcı değil. medyum hikaye...

When talking about De Palma's sense of excess in his films it's more often a positive, him making fairly typical tales grandiose. This is excess by lack of imagination. The Fury takes a silly concept and tries to run straight with it, fucking up all the way with horrible dialogue, pointless scenes, dragged shots, random pacing, and laughable attempts at dramatic framing such as a long score-only slow motion scene with zero weight behind it because characters only have goals and no personality.

Interesting psychic thriller that builds some wonderful moods within its genre, and is peppered with some rather effective humour throughout. But where De Palma succeeds in mastering the filmic form, he sure does stumble in the narrative side. The Fury digresses from one storyline to the other, stumbling along and making little sense some of the time. Extra points for having the most awesome ending to any film ever.

Inconsistent and disjointed at times, and lacking in emotional heft, but it's not afraid to be weird and disturbing. Cassavetes exploding is hilarious.

Hardly one of De Palma's great films but it's a fabulous misfire - convoluted exposition scenes and creaky action sequences centered on Douglas-as-spy-dad sit next to rich Gothic imagery, a great John Williams score and plenty of wonderfully operatic filmmaking, including one of De Palma's finest usages of slow motion. It suffers because the material is too messy - De Palma works best when the stories are simple and only the filmmaking is outsized.

An odd cluster of scenes that often feel like they are from different films. Still, there are some impressive images from De Palma and John Williams score over an exploding Cassavetes is something new.

70.500

A perfectly serviceable horror film. It has some good scenes and Douglas is good as is Cassavetes. It isn't the best horror film I've seen, but I've seen much much worse.

Oooh, what a bunch of great performances. Amy Irving...

watched: 2011, 2022

ger; [Teufelskreis Alpha]; ein geheimagent sucht seinen entführten sohn, der psychokinetische fähigkeiten hat, und muss dafür die hilfe der ebenfalls begabten gillian nutzen.

More disturbing than Carrie.

Very entertaining execution of a old premise

Decent Sci Fi film.