Fury driven by grime, gore, and manly men

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      Starring Logan Lerman and Brad Pitt. Rated 14A. Now playing

      Nazis are ideal screen villains. The technological superiority of their weaponry makes them fearsome enemies, while their policies were so unambiguously evil that viewers automatically despise them. That combination helps account for the enduring genre of World War II movies, of which Fury is a formidable addition.

      Thematically, Fury adds verisimilitude to the saga of the American warrior. Brad Pitt as tank commander Wardaddy, Michael Peña as driver Gordo, Shia LaBeouf as gunner Bible, Jon Bernthal as loader Coon-Ass, and Logan Lerman as Norman (a rookie driver so hapless that he doesn't even have a nickname) are realistically grimy, but we've seen grime before. (And gore—the organ and limb budget must have been astronomical.)

      What's unusual for the genre is the strung-out condition of our heroes. Writer-director David Ayer, author of Training Day and End of Watch, continues his exploration of manly men under extreme pressure, in this case delivering a tale of incredibly brave and professionally diligent tank troopers who are also capable of at least contemplating the incidental rape of German civilians. The movie isn't preachy about this, it just observes. Ayer refrains from underlining any moral lessons, just as he holds back from explaining Wardaddy's occasional flashes of erudition.

      Visually, the film breaks ground as the first American movie to focus on armoured combat. Set in the spring of 1945, the film spends much of its time inside Fury, a battered M4 Sherman outmatched by rival tank squadrons operating the larger Tiger and motivated to protect the Fatherland. The tank battles are intense—a combination of firefight and chess match, with the camera in the thick of screaming projectiles, laser-like tracers and roaring engines. It's horrible and exhilarating. You might understand why Wardaddy, shell-shocked as he seems to be, keeps saying that it's the best job he ever had.

      Comments

      19 Comments

      Pat Crowe

      Oct 18, 2014 at 6:16pm

      "The first American movie to focus on armoured combat."
      How old are you, Ron?

      Adrian Mack

      Oct 18, 2014 at 8:34pm

      Ron is 115 years old, or one year older than cinema itself, if we agree that it basically began in 1900. Why??

      Pat Crowe

      Oct 19, 2014 at 9:49am

      WAH??? 115?! Are you PATTrONizing me Adrian? At that ripe old age I guess he wouldn't be fighting the Battle of the Bulge anymore!
      Ron needs to google Tank Girl, Adrian!

      Ron Y

      Oct 19, 2014 at 10:29am

      @Pat

      Pretty old.

      To me, Fury is to armoured combat as Das Boot is to submarine combat and Battle of Britain was to aerial dogfighting (not in an "authorial intent" sort of way, but in immersing the viewer inside the vehicle for an extended period of time and showing a great deal of the actual working of the craft).

      I can't think of another American movie that has done this. Obviously there were tanks sequences IN "Tank" (comedy), "Sahara" (which equally is about windsurfing) and for a few seconds of "The A Team" (where they use the turret gun to change directions because they were falling through the air...nevermind), "Kelly's Heroes" has a tank sequence too (action comedy). Captain America blows up a Hydra tank thingie.

      But none of those was focused on being inside of a tank, getting shot at, shells bouncing off the glacis, squad tactics, as the main action beats of the film. That's why I consider it the first (or if not the first, pretty rare) American movie focusing on armoured combat.

      Why, what were you thinking of?

      Pat Crowe

      Oct 19, 2014 at 1:53pm

      Hi Ron.
      I very much am looking forward to seeing Fury.
      But what I am really thinking of is the sad fact that once again another "American" movie is showing us what our heroic ancestors did for us. My great uncle Norman Jesson was a Sherman tank gunner in the Winnipeg Horse. He was involved in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, France, and Germany. After the war he was stationed in Croatia for another year because the Commanders thought we were going to go against the Soviets. As opposed to American European theatre tankers who were in the stew for less than a year he was gone and survived the 1 in 5 odds in a Sherman from 1938 until 1946. My uncle would not talk of his wartime experiences, ever. If asked he would just get very quiet and reflective and say," Oh I don't want to talk about that." The two things I did glean from him were, "all war movies are bullshit" and "never trust a cop."
      I would suggest my uncles wartime experiences in a Sherman would make for a far more engaging viewer experience in film than Fury but we as Canadians whom helped lead the charge against the Nazi's in WW2 have to leave it to Brad Pitt for a taste of what it was like for great Canadians like my Uncle Norman. Thank You, Brad Pitt!
      And you're right Ron about first armoured war movie. I was just jerking your chain. Battle of the Bulge and Patton are weak representations of armoured combat at best.
      Thank you for your review.

      Martin Dunphy

      Oct 19, 2014 at 2:29pm

      I do seem to remember a wartime (meaning made during the war) U.S. movie about a Yank tank crew roaming throughout Europe. Can't remember the name, but it wasn't very good. Then there was <em>The Beast</em>, of course, but not American. (And I guess <em>The Desert Fox</em> didn't focus on tanks all that much? Mostly James Mason looking magnificently aggrieved.)

      Ron Y

      Oct 19, 2014 at 4:43pm

      You're welcome for the review Pat!

      I'm not sure whether you're sad because this is an American movie or because it is a bullshit movie.

      I'd like to see another Canadian war movie too (but if I could make one, it would be The Bandy Papers). At least Fury goes to considerable lengths to show that the Americans were not Boy Scouts.

      Pat Crowe

      Oct 19, 2014 at 5:13pm

      Martin is it possible you are thinking of the 1943 Hunphrey Bogart tank film called, Sahara?

      Martin Dunphy

      Oct 19, 2014 at 5:58pm

      Pat:

      Thanks: maybe (it's the right time frame), but I'm sure I remember lots of European detail (French farmhouses, etcetera). And I'm pretty sure I'd remember Bogie (Bogey?).
      I'll conduct a proper search when time allows.

      Michael

      Oct 19, 2014 at 8:18pm

      I was a bit surprised about "the first American movie to focus on armoured combat" comment too. It's been years (and years, and years), but I vaguely remember a movie that, I think, was the 1965 "Battle of the Bulge", as a "tank movie". At the very least they spent a nontrivial amount of effort getting the tanks believable, although they were using postwar tanks and obviously didn't have the resources of a modern movie. Maybe you're right and I'm remembering things that weren't there.