Movies: Fury

Score:  ***1/2 out of ***** (B)

Long Story Short:  Brad Pitt goes back to WWII again (Inglorious Basterds) for a more serious - but almost as bloody - tour of duty.  Leading a tank crew of familiar faces, such as LeBeouf and Lerman, Pitt is in an even grimmer, darker vision of the "Good War" than usual.  Action sequences from the perspective of a tank are both new and thrilling, but a strand of Hollywood cliche in the form of Lerman's rookie subverts the realistic portrayal.  Good film, could have been better.


After a week off, here's a third review from a busy October movie calendar.  Looking ahead in September I had identified Gone Girl, The Judge, and this week's film Fury as an impressive trio.  Be prepared for a change of pace next week, and the week after (should) bring my review of the much-anticipated Interstellar.  When I read a preview for Fury earlier this year, I was immediately interested.  I enjoy many war movies, and this one had an impressive cast, too.  With solid RT reviews, the choice was clear.  Fury was directed by David Ayer (End of Watch) and stars Brad Pitt, Logan Lerman and Shia LeBeouf.

Fury takes place in the final month of the European theater of WWII, in the heart of Germany.  From the midst of a devastated field of battle, one solitary American tank, driven by Collier (Pitt), Swan (LeBeouf), Travis (Bernthal), and Garcia (Pena) makes its way back to Allied lines.  Collier and crew just witnessed first-hand the fierceness and desperation with which the Germans are making their last stand, and not long after they're sent back to the line again.  However, during the earlier battle they had lost a crew member who is replaced by a complete rookie, Ellison (Lerman).

It quickly becomes clear that Ellison's inexperience and hesitance are almost as great a threat to the survival of the tank's (Fury) crew as the Nazis themselves.  Still, Collier and his mates, veterans from all the way back to North Africa, manage to rescue pinned down Allies and help capture towns.  When Fury finds itself alone in hostile Germany, though, Ellison must become a warrior like the rest if any of them are to survive.

The cast of Fury does a good job, although it is often let down by the script.  Brad Pitt is the lead as Staff Sergeant "Wardaddy" Collier.  Pitt does well throughout, quite natural as a hardened war leader and he gets most of the Important Lines ("Ideals are peaceful.  History is violent.").  However, the script can't really decide if it wants Collier to be a realistically-scarred son-of-a-bitch or an ultimately accepting father figure.  Logan Lerman plays new recruit Ellison, the one character the audience can directly sympathize with.  He does an OK job, with both high- and lowlights, but his character is the biggest problem in the film (more on this later).  The other three crew members are played well by recognizable faces.  Shia LeBeouf plays a much less frenetic person than usual, a quietly stern man of faith; Jon Bernthal (The Walking Dead) is a redneck asshole who I wanted to punch in the face every second he was on screen (so, he played his part well); and Michael Pena brings just a few touches of humor with his character.

The main objective of Fury, as a war film, is the "war is hell" theme.  While it accomplishes this task exceedingly well at times, it is also significantly undermined by a competing impulse to show Hollywood heroics, particularly in regard to young Ellison.  Despite the imminence of the Allies' victory, nearly everything about the atmosphere - from the weather to the landscape to the soundtrack - indicates a grim feeling devoid of "good".  It's an impressive - and important - tone to convey that, even as the Allies closed in on victory in perhaps the most "righteous" of war efforts, the reality of death and violence and brutality was inhuman.  People, soldiers and civilians, are matter-of-factly thrown into the grinder in various ways (hanging, burning, blown up, etc.).  There are also thrilling, tense (and more "enjoyable") battle scenes with Collier and co. spitting out realistic-sounding jargon as they maneuver Fury in battling Nazi defenses - and the terrifying Tiger tank.  And in the middle, an incredibly tense scene in a town as Collier, Lerman and the crew interact with two German women, constantly on a knife's edge of their urges and restraint.

Unfortunately, there is a strain of "Hollywoodism" to dilute the grim but effective proceedings.  This centers on Ellison/Lerman.  Never mind the far-fetchedness of his role (would the Army really put a scrawny, brand-new (to fighting itself, let alone tanks) recruit on the front lines like that?).  Collier is forced to brutally turn him into a warrior (including a chilling scene of murder), and the next moment serve as a (not quite tender) father figure.  Ellison himself vacillates from annoying squeamishness/morality to unconvincing courage.  And the final battle disappointingly ditches most of the prior war realism for an obviously Hollywood "last stand".

***

Fury is a good war film, one that could have been great if it just resisted its Hollywood impulses (Pitt takes his shirt off, for crying out loud!).  Saving Private Ryan is still, to me, by far the gold standard of war films, and even this year's Lone Survivor is a superior film.  Survivor may have had some Hollywood heroism elements within its brutal-realism frame as well, but A) it was fit well into the script, and B) the whole movie was so damn tense it was nice to have a little relief.  Fury's Hollywood elements, on the other hand, do not fit well in the script (clumsy writing, despite having some realistic banter elsewhere) and divert the viewer from the film's main theme.  If they had simply not been determined to make Ellison a "zero to hero" character (and reworked the climactic battle sequence), this could all have been avoided.  Still, there are some significant drawing points for the film.  The tank action sequences are really well done, and a large part of the film conveys the horrors of war effectively and appropriately.  Is that enough?  You'll have to decide that for yourself.



"Fury 2014 poster" by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fury_2014_poster.jpg#mediaviewer/File:Fury_2014_poster.jpg