FURY Review: 'Ideals are peaceful, history is violent'
Sony Pictures
On Friday night, I walked into the theater to see Brad Pitt’s new movie Fury. The night started well—by buying my ticket at the door, I got a free Fury shirt. Upon sitting down I immediately got up when the trailers started and Interstellar was the first one. Then later in the weekend, the trailer assaulted me while watching the Bronco’s beat up the 49er’s. Apparently nowhere is safe.
In Fury an American tank crew heads behind German lines at the close of WWII to discover they are out gunned and out manned. Writer/director David Ayer (Training Day, End of Watch) brings us a well-crafted war tale focused on this crew as a new member joins after one of their own falls to German attack.
The movie opens with a beautiful long take of a German soldier on horseback riding through a battlefield. Wardaddy (Pitt) jumps from behind the seemingly broken down tank and kills the soldier. After they get back to base, they say goodbye to their fallen brother and welcome Norman (Logan Lerman) an 8-week green soldier, trained to be a clerk. The tough crew struggles to accept Norman into their fold as they were together since the beginning of the war, through North Africa, France, Belgium, and finally Germany.
“Wait till you see…what a man can do to another man,” warns Shia LaBeouf’s character Boyd, who everyone refers to as ‘Bible’. Like a lot of replacement soldiers in the war, Norman finds integration hard and Wardaddy even takes drastic actions to bring him up to speed.
A few scenes later, we arrive at what might be the most tense scene of the whole film. But it’s not in the form of an action sequence. Wardaddy leads Norman to clear a building and they find two German women. Interrupted by the rest of the crew (LaBeouf, Michael Peña and Jon Bernthal), they share a tiny meal with the two women. It’s during this scene where we hear of the horrors that the crew has seen. After leaving the town, Norman makes his decision that he will kill Germans and won’t hesitate again. The crew is finally brought together when they receive a mission to protect a crossroads from German advances.
Peña (End of Watch) and Bernthal (Walking Dead) perform very well and Pitt and LaBeouf really shine. Lerman (Noah, Perks of Being a Wallflower) plays his part of hesitant soldier coming around to accept his fate. On the whole, it is a well acted film with Ayer able to take us along on this intense ride. And it’s no wonder—both of Ayer’s grandfather’s served in WWII and he was in the military before turning to screenwriting and directing. The relationships and interactions are grounded in a reality that he knows and has heard much about from those who where there.
We’re currently working on a rating system to rate movies, but for now, I would definitely go see this one.