I could start out with the cliché that war is hell.
It is hell not for the toll on human life but what it does to men.
When Shia LaBeouf’s character of Boyd Swan says, “Wait until you see it;” Logan Lerman’s “Norman Ellison,” asks, “See what?”
“What a man can do to another man.”
And that is the horror of war. And Swan and Ellison are in the charnel pit that is “Fury”, the nickname this crew has christened their tank that is named for the American Civil War General, William Tecumseh Sherman, who first uttered the aforementioned phrase in the opening line of this review.
If “Top Gun” was the film for fighter aircraft, “Crimson Tide” for submarines, and “Gladiator” for sword fighting and arrows, then “Fury” is for tank warfare.
The film centers on a tank crew in the waning days of World War II as the Allies race into Nazi Germany. But as Brad Pitt’s character of “Wardaddy” or “Top” (for top sergeant) correctly says, “It will end soon but before it does, a lot of people will have to die.”
You can say that since “Platoon,” war films have tried to show gruesome and horrific ways to kill and die and “Fury” is no different. The carnage is horrific; no doubt, a testament to the frightening capabilities of the tank and its weaponry. But Fury as a film finds its humanity in between battles and in those last moments when life ebbs away.
The crew of the Fury are battle-hardened and oblivious to death. They are uncouth and to a fault, even unfeeling. Pitt lets his guard down for a moment and tells Ellison, who comes in as a late replacement for their departed gunner, “not to get close to anyone.”
Norman rejects the violence and it costs the life of a tank crew during one encounter with Hitler Youth soldiers. Top is disgusted and forces Norman to shoot a German soldier reasoning he is of no use to the war effort if he cannot kill the enemy.
The weariness and barbarism has taken its toll on the crew. This was a time when one didn’t go home because his tour was over. One went home either as a hero because he was injured or the war is over or worse, in a body bag. And you can see the weariness or look of death in their eyes and I think this is magnificent acting.
When Grady “Coon Ass” Travis, played by Jon Bernthal of The Walking Dead fame, is rude to Norman, even the rest of the crew is appalled at what they have become. No doubt, they remember their days as a new conscript when death seemed so close but yet far away.
Bernthal, who played the wicked and deranged Shane in The Walking Dead once more plays the loose cannon. But credit to the script writers, who instead of a typical portrayal of a redneck, allow the character to be depicted in the film’s more quiet moments, as a man remorseful for what he has become. He apologizes to Norman and tells him that he is a good man. When Travis dies a painful death when struck by a panzerfaust, an anti-tank weapon, Swan is overcome by grief. No matter what the cost to a person, the crew are family. They have survived the war beginning at North Africa and are now coming at a gruesome end in Germany.
The outnumbered but not outgunned crew makes a gallant last stand in the face of a horde of 300 Waffen SS troops.
“Fury” director and scriptwriter David Ayer is known for his gritty films such as “Training Day” (that was directed by Anton Fuqua), “Harsh Times,” and Street Kings” that feature complex characters. There is no black and white and his movies. There’s a lot of grey with the lines of hero and villain blurring. If “Training Day” begat an Academy Award for Denzel Washington who played a corrupt cop, a usual departure from his more heroic roles, “Fury” I believe extracts great performances from Pitt, Shia LaBeouf (who finally got out of those “Transformers” flicks), and Michael Peña (who plays tank driver “Gordo”).
It is said that “Fury” is reminiscent of the magnificent “Saving Private Ryan.” If it is, only because “Fury” is a damn good war film. But in plot, it is a bridge too far between films. War is about missions and the crew of the Fury fulfill it to the last man.
At the very end, and perhaps the one similarity I will agree to when it comes to “Saving Private Ryan,” it is a film that moves you and you think about it.
I guess war is like that, it leaves you thinking, scarred, changed, and maybe unhinged. “Fury” ends and you say, “that a was a great combat film.”