FURY

Reviewed by Patrick Gibbs



GRADE:  A-

Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Michael Pena, Jon Bertnthal, Jason Isaacs, Scott Eastwood 

Written and directed by David Ayer
Rated R (Violence, gore, profanity, sexuality, vulgarity, smoking, and Shia LeBeof with a mustache)

In the 1998 comedy Small Soldiers, Phil Hartman is watching an old war movie on TV and wistfully remarks "I think World war II was my favorite war." 

This has long been true of Hollywood and the average moviegoer/history buff. One of the reasons for this may be that it was the last major American war with a clear objective that we can all (at least to some extent) understand, and it easily has the best villain. Even those of us who are anti-war and anti-military can appreciate the need to stop Hitler from conquering the world. But there is still too much romanticism and hero worship attached to the war for my comfort. I'm not saying that that the soldiers who fought in Europe weren't heroes on a very real level: their sacrifice is immeasurable and they may very well have saved the world. But how do you fight a war without destroying yourself? How do you get right in the the thick of the most insane and appalling of enterprises, blowing people up left and right, and manage to stay alive inside, even if you manage to stay so on the outside? David Ayer's new film argues that maybe you don't. Maybe you can't. You have to kill yourself before you can kill others.

Fury is set during the last few months of the European Theater of War in April, 1945. As the allies make their final push into Nazi Germany, a battle hardened U.S. Army Sergeant named Collier (Brad Pitt) in the 2nd Armored Division commands an M4A3E8 Sherman Tank nicknamed "Fury," and the five men who serve aboard it. One of these men has just been killed, and a last minute replacement gunner is needed. Enter Norman (Logan Lerman), a clerk typist who hasn't seen any action, who somehow gets assigned to this post. Norman is a scared, mild mannered and very moral young man who could not possibly fit in less with his comrades, who are all seasoned killers, and not the most pleasant of people. In fact, at times they seem downright evil, and Norman just might be more terrified of them than he is of the Nazis.

The two obvious and inescapable comparisons here are Saving Private Ryan, in particular the character of Corporal Upham (portrayed by Jeremy Davies), and Training Day, the police drama that won Denzel Washington an Oscar and brought writer David Ayer to prominence in the first place. In many ways,  this is Training Day goes to war, as we follow the baptism by fire of a naive young man who is being trained by the toughest of the tough and having his squeamishness and ideas about morality beaten out of him in the process. The arrogant machismo practically drips off of these guys, and ostensibly, they are trying to "make a man out of Norman," but in reality they are taking that away from him. They make him clean the gruesome remains of the man he is replacing out of he tank; they force him to kill, and even talk him into taking a young German girl to bed during a brief moment of R&R. This interlude is extremely uncomfortable but riveting, as we try to figure out if this is a shared moment of happiness between two strangers or a peer pressure rape.

What makes the movie work is the realization that we do indeed see moments of humanity in all of these guys. In one of the film's most memorable dialogue scenes, Jon Bernthal, as the toughest member of the group, apologizes to Norman for the way he's treated him "You're a good man, Norman," he says. "I think maybe we're not, but you are."

No one one in this film is black and white good or bad. They are so far removed from the people that they used to be, in a place where doing the right thing is so contrary to their mission that they are really all just becoming machines. We see a lot of atrocities committed: imagine if the "Look: I washed for supper!" guys in Saving Private Ryan were the main characters. This may be the least flattering portrayal of American soldiers in Hollywood since Casualties of War, but it stops short of completely judging them. The war itself is the monster.

The tank battle scenes are pulse pounding, and the level of violence and destruction is truly grotesque, at Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down levels but treated more casually. Especially in its final section, Fury almost falls into the horror genre, which is a surprisingly effective choice.

It's very hard to make a war movie, especially a WWII movie, that doesn't recycle cliches and formulas (even Private Ryan abounded in them), and there is definitely a strong "I've seen this before element" to the film. But as both writer and extremely skilled director, Ayer tries hard to balance that with just enough "I've never seen that before" to keep you feeling both satisfied and completely assaulted at the same time.

The acting is strong all around, with Lerman as the clear standout, but Bernthal is an incredibly strong presence, and we are reminded that all of the hype, backlash and self destruction put aside, LeBeouf really can act. Of course the movie is selling itself on the strength of Brad Pitt, who delivers an enigmatic but engaging performance, and of course gets the requisite scene where he takes his shirt off to show us a physique that makes you wonder how he manages to fit all of the Nautilus equipment inside a Sherman, and also show the obligatory scars burns all over his back that make us realize that this man has been through hell and back, and we can't judge him until we've walked a mile in his combat boots and that we should never judge a book by its haircut. What makes this over the top and cliched character work is the choice not to play it as a scenery chewing role but with a detached sense of melancholy.

Fury is a  little bit longer than it really needs to be, and it is definitely not for all tastes, and especially not for those easily bothered by blood and gore. It has its moments of over the top, "damn the torpedoes" heroics, but there is a feeling of misguided futility to it all.  I'm not against supporting the troops by any means, but after more than a decade of unquestioned flag waving and country music propaganda songs, I really liked seeing a film that does for the American G.I. what Unforgiven did for the wild west gunfighter, and dares to say that if war is hell, at some point you're going to find yourself embracing the devil.