After becoming increasingly unhinged following the death of his daughter and the abduction of his wife, vigilante cop Ronan Pierce embarks on a rampage through the seedy underworld of Harbour City, venting his rage on organ harvesters, rapists, drug dealers, murderers, human traffickers and child molesters as he hunts down those responsible for tearing his family apart.
The main problem with Fury is that it seems to think that all of the above constitutes a genuine story. What it actually gives us is a series of violent vignettes dripping with hypermasculinity, which given the right tone and atmosphere can admittedly be fun for a while. However, once you realise that the overblown intensity is all that the film has to offer, any sense of anticipation is soon replaced by repetitive tedium as it swiftly descends into an incoherent mess that manages to stretch a run time barely topping 80 minutes.
Ronan is supposed to come off like Batman or The Punisher, except he is so consumed by his lust for vengeance that any recognisable vestiges of personality have been burned away in the furnace of his wrath. Or it could just be really bad writing that plays out like an adolescent wet dream of vigilante justice as this lone cop on the edge snarls and growls his way through every moment he’s on screen. There is a lot more to portraying characters with unresolved rage issues than constant profanity and EVERYBODY SHOUTING ALL THE TIME.
When the action isn’t focused on Ronan’s exploits, we get numerous unnecessary scenes of the sweaty and greasy dregs of humanity he hunts unleashing their sadism on anonymous innocents just to needlessly emphasise their loathsome evil, taking up time that would have been better spent developing the few characters still alive after their introductory scene.
The film aims for the ‘80s DTV action vibe that was so recently and utterly owned by Kung Fury, while being heavily influenced by the likes of Sin City. Sadly, in attempting to ape Frank Miller’s exaggerated machismo all the McCarthy brothers have done is create an implausible world of hateful misogyny. While tinting every shot with faded ochre might aid in crafting the desired comic book aesthetic, it also serves to emphasise the completely lack of anything resembling realism, thus making it impossible to take seriously. Overall, Fury: The Tales of Ronan Pierce is malicious, spiteful, obnoxious and worst of all for a film like this, absolutely no fun.
FURY: THE TALES OF RONAN PIERCE / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR: KEVIN A. MCCARTHY / SCREENPLAY: KEVIN A. MCCARTHY, MICHAEL MCCARTHY / STARRING: MICHAEL MCCARTHY, JORDAN ELIZABETH, WADE GALLAGHER, BRAD POTTS, HARRY ASPINWALL / RELEASE DATE: OCTOBER 12TH
