Lerman Shines

Rating: 8/10 (8 February 2018)

Fury follows a bad-ass tank crew and its bad-ass, grizzled, Nazi-hating, SS-killing leader, Sgt. Don 'Wardaddy' Collier (Brad Pitt). A new kid, Norman (Logan Lerman), joins the team - pretty much against his better judgement. He's never seen the inside of a tank before and hasn't even fired a gun since basic training. He's quite certain there's been a mistake and just wants to go home.
Norman is a military-trained typist. An excellent, experienced typist; 60-words a minute he can go. A worthwhile skill to have when you've got a superior officer dictating a memo, but does it work when you've got an entire division of Nazis shooting at you? Not exactly. Norman is teased relentlessly, and mercilessly slapped around by Wardaddy because he refuses to kill anyone. Norman's crewmates believe he'll get them all killed one day, and there's plenty of opportunity for that. Wardaddy is well respected by the Oldman (Jason Isaacs, whom you won't even recognize) and it's Wardaddy's crew that always get the call when there are Nazi's that need killing or Allies that need rescuing; a task that Wardaddy ruthlessly, and violently, carries out with gusto and a 'take no prisoners' attitude.
Fury shows the horrors of war quite explicitly. There is enough blood and gore in this movie to make any horror film make-up artist blush. I'm confident in saying that the actions displayed on screen in Fury happened in real life during the war - during any war - even though this particular story is fiction. It's that realism that makes this film sometimes hard to watch. 'War is hell' to quote William Tecumseh Sherman. Everything is so realistic and so genuine it's nauseating.
I began to hate Brad Pitt as this movie went on. He plays quite a jerk. You'll hate him too (if you don't already for some other reason). Same with Jon Bernthal (that's the guy who played Shane in The Walking Dead). He's a creepy war machine without a conscience. Shia LaBeouf plays a depressed bible-quoting, war-weary soldier, and you know something else, he's really good in this role! I was surprised, actually, because of, you know, his frequent meltdowns I figured he just went crazy and stopped acting. His character is a troubled and emotional young man, so it's not too far from reality (and the cut on his right cheek is real and self-inflicted prior to filming the movie). Logan Lerman is awesome. He's come a long way since The Butterfly Effect (2004), and I much prefer to see him in an intense role like this, surrounded by so much talent. Lerman feeds off the other actors and you can see it.
Sound mix is awesome, so is the cinematography (same guy who shot Suicide Squad and End of Watch). There is a good scene when some tanks get into a battle with some stubborn Nazis. There is one shot in particular that is awe-inspiring. You'll know which one I'm talking about when you see it. It's quite stunning. I don't use the term 'awe-inspiring' very often.
Overall, good movie, watch it when you can.