Fury (2014)
While armoured warfare may have taken its first lumbering baby steps in latter stages of the First World War, it was in the Second World War that it really came into its own, with the warring nations deploying tanks in their thousands to take part in some of the fiercest battles of the war, suffering catastrophic numbers of casualties in the process. It is the story of a crew of one of these tanks that is the focus of David Ayer’s dark and brutal war drama Fury.
The battle hardened crew of the tank dubbed “Fury” are joined by a new recruit as Allied forces make the final push into Nazi Germany in the dying days of the Second World War in Europe while facing fierce resistance from the fanatical remnants of Hitler’s army.
The acting is from the film’s cast is largely exemplary throughout with the crew of the tank fury being quite different from the sometimes clean cut protagonists of other war films.
Brad Pitt’s “War Daddy” is not your prototypical mentor/leader, instead being a very complex kind of character, ruthless and violent in one scene like when he viciously leaps onto a passing German soldier and stabs him to death, while also being courteous and calm like when he has breakfast with a German mother and daughter.
Logan Lerman is also on fine form as new recruit Norman, dubbed “Machine” by his crewmates, with the events of the film being a transformative one for him, taking him from a meek typist who has never fired a gun into an effective fighter that is accepted as one of the crew.
Also on top form oddly enough is Shia Labeouf who in his performance as the deeply religious “Bible” demonstrates that when he isn’t doing bizarre anti-Trump art projects or ripping off Joaquin Phoenix’s I’m Still Here routine, that he can be a pretty good actor, with his character arguably being the most intriguing of the cast.
Although Jon Bernthal and Michael Pena are slightly under-served with regards to their characters, particularly Berenthal’s questionably named “Coon Ass”, coming across as a not particularly bright or likeable brute, with his menacing of the German mother and daughter being somewhat uncomfortable to watch.
This film is brutal in its depiction of war, with scenes of crowded field hospitals and the screaming maimed men within being deeply unpleasant sights to behold and, as is Norman’s attempts to clean up the splattered remains of his predecessor as the tank crew’s gunner, and this is all within the film’s opening moments. We also have a deeply uncomfortable sequence in which “War Daddy” forces Norman to execute an unarmed German soldier, with the questionable morality behind the scene making it all the more difficult to watch.
The battle sequences are brilliant in their staging and execution, with the standout moments being a tense and exciting battle between Fury and a German Tiger tank, with the men ducking and weaving their mighty machine to narrowly dodge enemy fire, while their fellow tanks are obliterated in often gory and fiery fashion. My personal favourite sequence comes in the film’s climax, in which the crew turn their disabled tank into a fortress from which they can unleash hell upon their enemy, with the flames of a burning farmhouse illuminating the action.
Now a lot of people might not be fans of writer/director David Ayer, especially if you’ve sat through his other 2014 film, the awful and nasty Sabotage (seriously that film is a turd of the foulest kind), and he’s certainly not won any new fans with his heavily criticised and divisive DC effort Suicide Squad.
However, regardless of what you think of his other work, I implore you to at least give Fury a chance, because it’s probably the best film that David Ayer is likely to make, with it being a truly brutal depiction of the Second World War in its final days and a genuinely good film to boot.
Do you agree with my choices of films that I think are some of the finest depictions of war on the silver screen? Do you think I’m an idiot with poor taste in films? (I imagine including Red Dawn might cause some debate). Or do you want to make suggestions for other war films that I should take a look at in a possible future war film feature? Regardless of your views do let me know in the comments. Thanks.
Graeme Robertson
Originally published April 29, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
