The Fury

The Fury (1978)
Director: Brian DePalma
Cast: Kirk Douglas, Amy Irving, Andrew Stevens, John Cassavetes, Charles Durning
Memorable line: "What a culture can't assimilate, it destroys. "

The big question behind The Fury is what would the government do if they discovered someone with dramatic psychic powers such as telekinesis or clairvoyance. While someone what striking at the time, it doesn't fare well when compared with the C.G.I. special effects of today's movies.

The Plot of The Fury
Peter (Douglas) is a government agent who discovers his son, Robin (Stevens) has paranormal psychic abilities. In spectacular attack at a beach front resort, Peter is presumably killed and Robin is snatched away for his "own protection" but a family friend and fellow agent (Cassavetes) to a secluded location. Peter survives the attack and is hellbent to find and rescue his son.

Meanwhile, Gillian (Irving) is a seemingly normal teen in Chicago when she starts exhibiting strange powers much like Robin's which brings her to the attention of the group who snatched Robin. Gillian is taken to a special institute to help nurture her new found powers and control them under the auspicious of Dr. McKeever (Durning) who is really working for the government.

Peter, through his underground contact,s gets wind of Gillian and is convinced that she is the key to finding his son. Working with a confederate inside the institute, Peter rescues Gillian from the institute and he uses her as a psychic detector to find Robin which leads to an ultimate show down.

The Performances, Writing, and Direction of The Fury
The Fury is based on the John Farris novel with Farris going on to write the screen play. The screenplay has a dynamic pace and works hard to include some lighter characters moments into the heavy topic, but at times it seems forced and the dialog at times is bit leaden. Douglas is convincing in the one-note part, as is Andrew Stevens who seems to only get two moods through his performance, sullen or angry. Amy Irving gets a little more character depth and does a good job of broadening out the character against some of the limitations of how her character was written. These three former roles all come across as over-wrought at times. Counter-balancing the characters and acting of the other characters, Cassavetes wonderfully underplay his role as the villain.

Many critics have derided DePalma for being a low-rent Hitchcock imitator, but it's hard to deny some of these allegations when you want this (and some of his other movies from this period). DePalma seems to like to balance out the dynamics of the movie, alternating between languid and histrionic.

Another disappointing note regarding the movie is the John Williams score. It does seem to harken back to some of the Elmer Bernstein Hitchcock scores, but not in a good way. At times, the intensity of the music almost seems to borderline on parody.

Summary Judgment on The Fury
The Fury is the case of one of those movies that doesn't weather the passage of time too well. In it's day, the special effects were probably heralded as innovative, but they now seem tame when compared with present efforts. The bigger issue with the movie is that the tone seems overly melodramatic in many places, lacking subtly and nuance. While not a total waste of time, I would recommend catching The Fury on cable rather than renting it.