Gritty, but lulls in places it need not go.

Rating: 6/10 (8 November 2014)

It's been a long time since we've had a good World War II film that's in the middle of combat. It seems to have been topped by the twofer of Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line 15 years ago. The thing with war films is that no matter how intentional or not the approach is, it holds an inherent social commentary on the development of how violence and conflict between two countries is portrayed. It goes for western too, there's politics. If the film is smart, it'll do something with it. Fury doesn't seem to have anything to say. It doesn't have to, but it results in a film that doesn't have anything to take away from it. Perhaps on a deeper level there's something to study regarding it's theme of masculinity, given the all-male cast (save for an appearance from Anamaria Marinca) and the phallus symbolism of guns and tanks, but it's not coherent enough to take anything from it. Instead, it seems it has some small things to say about ends justifying means and religious morality, but it doesn't exactly resonate or feel fully developed. However, Fury is generally inoffensive.
The biggest problem is that it lulls too often. We spend 24 hours with this unit on their journey and it suffers from constantly stopping and starting the story. It inches character development, but not enough to really chew on outside of archetypes. The performances are generally strong, especially from an underused Shia LaBeouf, with the highlight being Logan Lerman. I couldn't really enjoy Perks of a Wallflower but here he showed his chops, even if he isn't quite measured. Brad Pitt is always a good presence to have and he certainly anchors the movie in a comfortable place. Unfortunately it's just quite sloppy. It achieves a gritty and gory atmosphere of war by being utterly drenched in smoke, though evidently they had to borrow the lasers from Star Wars so we could see the bullets. It struggles to hold tension due to the liberties in logic it takes and not being able to invest in and follow the action. Its best chances are nominations are with the sound categories, but they're kind of a given in this genre. It is good to see a film that doesn't rush, which happens far too often these days with hyperactive editing, but Fury drags in places where it doesn't have to go.
6/10