Review: Fury

Set in 1945, and nearing the end of WWII, Logan Lerman stars as a young and decidedly inexperienced Army typist thrown into the deep end when assigned to join as a gunner and co-driver with one helluva motley tank crew of seriously battle-weary, rather prickly soldiers. Headed by veteran Brad Pitt, this rather disreputable bunch rather resent this rookie, who is horrified by not only the war going on around him, but the fact that he is expected to hold up his end, too. Shia LaBeouf is the resident religious-type, Jon Bernthal is the biggest arsehole among them, and Michael Pena is the token immigrant and the tank’s driver.

 

Well here was a big surprise. I didn’t know what to expect from this 2014 war movie, and when I found out at the end that it was written and directed by David Ayer (director of “End of Watch”, writer of the overrated “Training Day” and the transparent “Street Kings”), I was quite blown away. For starters, it wasn’t a corrupt cop movie for once. Amen to that right there. Also, the cinematography by Roman Vasyanov is not only much less shaky-cam happy than I expected, but some truly stunning images are captured throughout. This is in very stark contrast to the horrors of war going on in the film, and the frankly gone-to-seed characters carrying out the violence and mayhem. Although it’s not making the same points as “The Dirty Dozen” exactly, it certainly offers up another example of war being effectively fought by the ugliest and roughest amongst us. The film has its own identity, though. There’s a seriously grim, ugly tone to it that stops it from being too old-fashioned, like a “Dirty Dozen” or “Attack!” (both Robert Aldrich films, and both damn good, the former a masterpiece).

 

It’s quite an exciting film for those who ‘enjoy’ this sort of thing, and it’s a rare war film that focusses on tank warfare, which I personally appreciated. I was at first taken aback by the seeming laser fire of the tanks, but from what I’ve read, it’s an accurate representation of ‘tracers’, which help to see where you’re shooting. So there you go. Not content to just offer up action heroics, it’s very grim, very taciturn, and not at all shying away from showing what war is most likely really like. It’s one of those films like “Platoon” that is anti-war simply by presenting things as realistically as possible, rather than by offering up overt anti-war sentiment.

 

There are only two moments in the entire film where I felt I was drawn out of the experience. The first is a line spoken by Brad Pitt- ‘Ideals are peaceful. History is violent’. It’s a great line, but a ‘line’ nonetheless, and a screenwriter’s invention. No one actually involved in military conflict at that time would say such a thing in the moment. There’s also one moment later from Jon Bernthal that doesn’t ring true. He says something that would’ve sounded more plausible coming from either Michael Pena’s character or Shia LaBeouf’s. Because Bernthal’s character is the biggest scumbag of all of them, it stands out like a sore thumb, which is a shame. Having said that, I disagree with many here in saying that I don’t think the film as a whole is quite so jarring. People seem to think the finale goes against the film it was previously trying to be. I disagree, these guys are not turned into heroes. They’re irritable a-hole soldiers from beginning to end, dealing with their situation as best they can. War is ugly, brutal, and if you survive, it leaves scars. Look at what these guys are being asked to do, and how long they’ve been engaged in it. At no point does Ayer suggest these are a nice bunch of guys at all. They’re varying degrees of jerkdom. It’s just that one moment from Bernthal that didn’t ring true. I actually really liked that this film gave us characters who aren’t saints as protagonists. The villains here are Nazis, so it hardly hurts to make the American soldiers a bit seedy and ornery, so I appreciated a bit of difference.

 

There isn’t a bad performance to be found here, and Shia LaBeouf probably gives his best performance to date. However, Logan Lerman was for me the standout. He’s excellent as the one nice guy, and unfortunately he’s in the wrong gig for nice guys. He’s in over his head and hasn’t got the stomach for the nasty stuff, but being thrown into the deep end he’s just gonna have to cope. Of the rest, Brad Pitt plays the least morally objectionable of the lot, but as their platoon leader, he’s got a job to do and no time for babysitting newbies. Aside from that one moment (hardly the actor’s fault anyway) Bernthal is pitch-perfect as essentially a combination of John Cassavetes and Telly Savalas in “The Dirty Dozen”.

 

Yes this is clichéd stuff, you’ve seen it all before. The key is that it’s very effectively and mostly convincingly done. Pretty terrific, actually, and a must for war movie fans, especially Samuel Fuller fans, I’d say.

 

Rating: B