zardoz-13 Let's face it, Asylum movies suck. Usually, these so-called mockbusters aren't even amusing enough to mock the movies they bust. Incredibly, I cannot lump director Joseph L. Lawson's World War II actioneer "Ardennes Fury" in the same category with the bulk of Asylum's half-baked releases. For the record, this contrived 88-minute blood, sweat, and tears combat mission outing is a straight-to-video, knock-off of director David Ayer's memorable, baptism-by-fire army tank tale "Fury." No, "Ardennes Fury" cannot begin to compare with the gory, war-is-Hell, Brad Pitt movie. Nevertheless, this Asylum release ranks far above the standard-issue studio offal. First, "Ardennes Fury" takes itself seriously and treats World War II with respect. This is a life and death narrative with an American Army Sergeant (Tom Stedman) struggles to get the men under his command back to their lines before they are annihilated by either the enemy or their own USAAF bombers. Unfortunately, the acting at worst is tolerable, and the special effects are hopelessly ersatz, but "Ardennes Fury" at least tries to be more than a bad 'shark' joke. Second, this is a bloody, grimy saga with a genuine villain with a murderous streak running down his Nazi spine. "Red Rose of Normandy" actor Tino Struckman succeeds in making himself into a vile enemy officer. All the German soldiers here are treated like Hollywood movies depicted them in the 1940s when the Allies were at war with the Axis. Third, civilians die! Okay, I'm giving away details, but real life tragedy in an Asylum movie!? The last thing that most Asylum movies share in common is a shred of reality. Here we have children getting kill! Struckman's officer guns them down, while in an unrelated incident an apparently dead German soldier playing possum shoots a little boy in the back! Typically, acts of terror like this are reserved only for the Gestapo. If a German soldier isn't pulling the trigger, then it is a piece of enemy ordinance. A helpless nun steps on a land mine, and she gets blown up. Not even a brave African-American G.I. can save her life. Although we don't see them get blasted to smithereens, they die that way! All of this adds up to an Asylum movie like none other! The American sergeant and the German officer square off near the end before a massive Allied aerial raid, and it is a down and dirty fight to the death. Predictably, the sergeant triumphs, but it is a close-call. When the sergeant shoves a knife into Tino Struckman's nefarious German officer's neck, I cheered him with gusto.Now, I haven't exposed myself to every Asylum release, so there may be some good examples of other Asylum epics out there. "Ardennes Fury" is the first good movie that I have seen and would want to own on Blu-ray. I am overlooking many obvious technical errors. Sherman tanks were hardly a match for Tiger tanks, and Tigers were only vulnerable to Shermans from the rear. Here we are asked to believe that a Sherman could knock out several Tigers. Things would have been more credible how the American tanker crew survived the fray, found a crippled Tiger, killed the crew and used it against the other Tigers. Despite the numerous historical mistakes, I still think that director Joseph J. Lawson and scenarist Stephen Llorens deserve a salute for a job as well done as their minimal budget allowed them. Clearly, if these guys had a couple of million, they could have blown the bottom out of their subject matter.

nettles_r_2000 I think most of the reviewers have hit the low points. I don't know if anyone has points out that the battle of the Ardennes was fought in December and January so everyone in this movie would have frozen to death. The M-48 Tank Destroyer was not technically a "tank". It's job was to blow up tanks. And speaking of blowing stuff up, the final sequence was totally unrealistic even forgiving the crude special effects. This film was shot near where I grew up in Alabama and it is pretty obvious. The deer-trot cabin/orphanage was a dead give away. It looks like a bunch of WWII buffs got together and said "hey, let's make a movie. how hard can it be?" I can't believe anyone actually financed it or distributed it. I thought this might be like the Saints and Sinners series but it is not nearly as well made. With a little rewriting they may have made a pretty good spoof of a war movie but, alas, they tried to play it serious.

jghchartrand I thought the story line was interesting and had significant potential. Unfortunately there were many scenes of gross insubordination that would never have been tolerated in any military. If this was supposed to be a fantasy film like Starship Troopers then I guess the special effects would have worked. Help with the special effects from personnel with a military background would have improved the film. Further help from individuals with military experience would have also helped dramatically with realism if that was what was wanted. Unfortunately the film failed on both counts as it appeared to strive to be historical fiction, but was "way over the top" for special effects" and lacked basically military knowledge.

Shamu Redkar I was going through IMDb best movies of 2014 so that i could download and watch them later..Saw Brad pitts Fury in the list. immediately went to torrent to download it. in search result saw Ardennes Fury and i thought Ardennes is German name for fury. Immediately kept it for downloading. after almost a week thought of watching it. when the movie began i couldn't believe myself looking at such cheap world war fight and computer graphics also the ground battle looked sooo pathetic.. for almost half the duration of the movie i was wondering how could brad pitt act in such crap movie? was waiting for Prad pitt to show up, the movie came close to end and i just thought of rechecking and i got the biggest shock of 2015.LOL ROFL LMAO.. this is epic fail. the movie as well as me. God bless those who saw this movie by mistake and were waiting for Brad pitts entry. I've rated 3 for the movie only for that Gorgeous looking girl. rest everything is not to be talked about.