A Tough Drive And the ‘Fury’ Five (Movie Review)
Fury:
3 ½ out of 5
Wardaddy: I had the best gunner in the entire United
Army in S.E. Now I have you.
World War II has been
the source of a lot of great war movies, let alone movies in general. It seems to have a near endless supply of
material, when it comes to developing new ideas for screenplays. Fury
may not be the first film about a tank crew, but it does seem like a refreshing
approach to this sort of film in modern times.
With that in mind, while writer/director David Ayer was able to provide
some exciting action sequences, a thrilling final act, and strong enough
material for the actors to work with, there is only so much a film like this
can accomplish when we end up not learning a whole lot about who this crew
is. As a result, Fury is a pretty straight-forward and occasionally intense war film
that certainly looks like the effort to keep it authentic was made, but does
not have much complexity, beyond visceral thrills.
The film stars Brad
Pitt as Don ‘Wardaddy Collier’, the commander of a Sherman tank, nicknamed
Fury. He leads a five-man crew that just
lost a man. A new gunner is brought
aboard. This gunner is Norman (Logan
Lerman), who joins in with ‘Bible’ (Shia LaBeouf), ‘Gordo’ (Michael Pena), and ‘Coon-Ass’
(Jon Bernthal). Which one do you think
is the vilest? Anyway, despite how green
Norman is to the world of tank gunning, he is brought along in the final push
into Nazi Germany during the last month of the European Theater. Norman may or may not adjust to the life of a
crewman on a tank, but he will be forced to act, when it comes to dealing with
overwhelming odds.
At 2+ hours, regardless
of how quick-paced it may have seemed, there is not much to the story of Fury.
That is almost a little strange to say, given that we do not really
learn much about the various characters involved to make up for the simplistic
story, but the film really only has tank battles and one very long segment that
tries to carefully balance the adjustment these men have made to being
constantly in battle, but still trying to hold onto their humanity when the
time calls for it. I will get back to
that scene soon, but as far as this film goes, it is not as though it is
excessive in its length, but I do wonder if David Ayer had more to say about
these characters that was left out.
While Brad Pitt and the
cast do a perfectly fine job at acting in the scenes that require them to do
more than shout orders at each other and hurl obscenities at the Nazi soldiers,
what do we really come away with knowing about them, aside from the basic
details that distinguish them? By
default, we come to learn the most about Logan Lerman’s character, as he is
basically the audience surrogate as well as the new guy that has to go through an
arc of sorts, when it comes to dealing with the opposing forces and whether or
not he knows how to cross a certain line regarding morality in war. For everyone else, we pretty much get the
most from just the assigned nicknames for each of them.
Brad Pitt is the
battle-hardended leader, as he is called ‘Wardaddy.’ LaBeouf has a religious bent, as he is known
as ‘Bible’. Pena occasionally speaks Spanish
and is known as ‘Gordo’ which is all we really know about him. It goes on like this. Sure, one can argue something similar for a
film like Saving Private Ryan, which
also featured a variety of characters defined by some simple character traits,
but that film also had more going on thematically and in the development of the
real key players in that film. Fury does not match that complexity, it
does not even make much of an attempt at standard melodrama, which is a bit
refreshing as well, I suppose. It did
not leave me reflecting on impact it tried to create, once all hell broke loose
and our five-man crew faced off against hundreds. Beyond not wanting to see harm come to the leads,
there was nothing that defined these guys in a way that made me want to be more
sympathetic towards them. Ayer is
showing us that ‘war is hell’ and while it is not a profound statement, he does
a fine job of putting that on display, just not in a way that stems from strong
characters dealing with it.
With that in mind,
these actors are doing great work in this film.
I can go back to a scene I alluded to earlier. One sequence finds Pitt and company having
invaded a small German neighborhood and we find ourselves watching Pitt and
Lerman explore an apartment building, only for them to find two women
attempting to hide. What follows is a
frightening display of attempted normality, as Pitt essentially orders everyone
to play house. This scene goes on long
enough to make you question the actions and then goes on even longer to fit in
the rest of the cast. In all of this,
regardless of how an audience member takes it in, the acting is incredibly
solid. We see each actor buried in the
roles they have been assigned to play.
It is the kind of scenario where clearly these actors know who they are
playing, but the film is still holding us back from understanding why they are
this way, beyond just the idea that ‘war has its effects.’
Putting this aside
though, as a technical exercise, Fury is
quite exciting. Tank battles in this day
and age can be made to look incredible and that is something this film is able
to accomplish. As much as I was a fan of
Ayer’s work on End of Watch, seeing
him take a break from gritty cop dramas (mostly set in LA) and spend some time
back in WWII has led to a pretty solid action experience. This film is brutal in its display of
war-based battle footage and it looks and sounds pretty amazing, when it comes
to the amount of effort put forward to really show what is necessary. If there is a reason to see this film, it is
to see the action on display, as the film’s story may have an inevitable outcome,
but the thrills involved in getting to that point is very worthwhile.
Fury
amounts to being a graphic, but watchable war picture. The characters are thinly defined, but the
acting is strong from all involved. It
is the tank battles that really make this film stand out though. David Ayer trades in deeper focus on the men
involved in exchange for a tense and action-packed film that seems to nail the
look and feel of an environment plagued by combat. For that reason, this may not be one of the
defining films that portrays WWII (nor does it need to be), but it is an
effective display of the harsh realities of war.
Wardaddy: Best job I ever had.
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