By JAKOB HAND
COLUMNIST
War is Hell, as they say, but how do you tell that story again and again and keep it interesting? David Ayer decided to tell the story from the inside of a Sherman tank. Fury follows the film’s namesake tank and its crew, headed up by Don “Wardaddy” Collier (Brad Pitt), as they battle across the German countryside in April 1945. Joining Wardaddy are “Bible” (Shia LaBeouf), “Gordo” (Michael Peña), and“Coon-Ass” (Jon Bernthal). New to the crew is Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), who is transferred to the tank crew after their previous assistant driver is killed in battle. Norman, who is trained as a typist and has never seen combat, is treated harshly by his crew mates who have no interest in getting to know someone they expect to be dead within hours or days. The crew call Norman names, beat him, and viciously force him to kill prisoners against his will.
As Norman gets closer to having a moral and mental breakdown, he experiences the horrors of war from the inside of the claustrophobic tank. He slowly begins to grow closer to his crew mates as they spend a full day fighting Nazi resistance in heated skirmishes. After capturing a German village and dining with locals in a damaged apartment building, Norman also sees the gruesome damage war leaves on civilians. Eventually, Fury and her crew are ordered to hold a crossroads to protect allied supply lines from a column of SS troops. When their tank is damaged and they are left without help, the crew digs in for a battle for their lives.
Fury boasts an excellent cast who deliver outstanding performances, right down to the smallest supporting roles. Pitt leads the cast as the stoic tank commander whose experience goes back to the North African campaigns. Lerman is excellent as the face of innocence lost in a muddy, bloody war zone. Peña adds a haunting monologue to the story, and Bernthal seems to be on the verge of a violent breakdown every few minutes. Even Shia LaBeouf, who usually earns cringes rather than praise for his acting, is outstanding as a religious man who has to rationalize killing with faith in a place that seems to have been abandoned by God. Together, the crew of Fury are much more than the sum of their parts.
Despite excellent acting performances, Fury is light on substance. Ayer tried to pack his story with meaningful phrases, including dreary lines about how War is Hell, as they say, but how do you tell that story again and again and keep it interesting? David Ayer decided to tell the story from the inside of a Sherman tank. Fury follows the film’s namesake tank and its crew, headed up by Don “Wardaddy” Collier (Brad Pitt), as they battle across the German countryside in April 1945. Joining Wardaddy are “Bible” (Shia LaBeouf), “Gordo” (Michael Peña), and“Coon-Ass” (Jon Bernthal). New to the crew is Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), who is transferred to the tank crew after their previous assistant driver is killed in battle. Norman, who is trained as a typist and has never seen combat, is treated harshly by his crew mates who have no interest in getting to know someone they expect to be dead within hours or days. The crew call Norman names, beat him, and viciously force him to kill prisoners against his will.
The saving feature of the film, along with the excellent acting, is the visuals, especially in the battle scenes. Roman Vasyanov, Ayer’s cinematographer, captured the claustrophobia of the tanks, and of the muddy pits the men around them fought and died in. Shot in muted grays, greens, and browns, the film has the bleak look of a nihilistic war movie. The only color in the film is a red blanket draped on the back of the tank and the flashes of tracer fire from machine guns as they blaze away at each other throughout the film. Despite the weak story, the haunting visuals, heart stopping tank battles, and quality acting combine to make Fury a solid, though bleak, war movie.