The Brutality of War

Rating: 7/10 (22 November 2014)

Director David Ayer's horrific war drama, FURY - starring Brad Pitt as the lead honcho, a tough father figure of a Sherman Tank crew of 5 men, including a virginal, brilliant blue-eyed "rookie" as the gunner (Logan Lerman), a boy/man whose unshaven cheeks are as supple as his belief in the "goodness" of his fellow human beings, even in the most grisly of circumstances. His transformation into steeled "manhood" is a painful reality to observe.
Like the Battle of Thermopylae the odds are stacked against this team of hardened, profane, American warriors fighting the Nazis on German soil in April 1945 - a last ditch violent effort by the Axis to prevail, realizing that defeat was fast approaching. The cinematography with its deep, muddy browns and fiery oranges casts a blazing light which permeates into the conscience and hearts of the characters. War is not exonerated or laundered; it is bloody and dirty - one's moral compass is abandoned in the effort to survive slaughter and death, be it by one's own hands or at the hands of others. It is hard to imagine going through this experience and not returning home shell-shocked and psychically wounded.
In the platoon is a soldier who puts his belief in God's will and protection, nicknamed "Bible" (Shia La Beouf,) an actor who has never been able to seduce me.until now. In FURY I finally understood La Beouf's appeal, with those dark penetrating eyes and a smile that conveys the Divinity's rapture; he is a symbol of underlying goodness prevailing over his own destructive power and the carnage of the "enemy."