Shocking, bloody, harrowing film of WWII depravity and heroism.

Rating: 8/10 (27 October 2014)

Fury has arrived amid much fanfare but it opens with a slow, cold eerily beautiful shot redolent of Lawrence of Arabia, albeit with an air of doom rather than mystery and promise. As the distant, wandering human figure arrives at an impromptu tank graveyard haunted by the smoky spectres of burning machines and the silence of death, the scene is set, the characters are established and we are left in no doubt as to the tone of the next two hours.
David Ayer's war film sits somewhere between Saving Private Ryan and The Magnificent Seven as a film of brotherhood against all odds. It is April, 1945 and the Allies are pushing through Germany in the final stages of WWII. In the midst of it is a battered Sherman tank that will not die, containing a crew of cynical, war-hardened, embittered soldiers who will not give in. Commanded by Wardaddy (Brad Pitt), the crew emerges from yet another onslaught, bloodied, shattered and one soldier down. There is little time to recover before they are sent on another mission, the quintet completed by greenstick Norman (Logan Lerman - Noah, The Perks of Being a Wallflower) a soldier whose only war experience is a few months typing at a desk.
The greatest achievement of Fury is the depiction of the horror and barbarism of war. Horror is not vampires and monsters, it is what humankind does to its itself; it is what ordinary human beings do to each other in extraordinary circumstances. Wardaddy might have been a decent man once but now he has been all but stripped of his humanity. He and his crew fight, kill, maim and abuse in order, not just to survive, but also to inflict pain and degradation on whatever and whomever they determine is the enemy. This is horror, physical and emotional, in great, grotesque, slopping bucket loads from the pieces of face splattered across the tank to the knuckle-chewing dread of what they might do to German civilians or prisoners of war.
Director David Ayer (Sabotage, End of Watch) has not taken the gung-ho stance of showing American soldiers as the heroes of the hour nor presented the convenient 'truth' that the enemy was bad and the allies good. We like to convince ourselves that the Allied troops fought a gentlemanly war against animals but Ayer leaves us in no doubt as to the horror and crimes they, too, committed in the name, and under the pressure, of war.
Fury is intense. It is angry and shocking. It is sickening and harrowing. It is a bloody, stomach-churning insight into the despicable acts that both sides committed and a particular sequence in a house with two innocent German women is terrifying for the possibility of what ordinary men may or may not inflict upon them.
Frequently Fury is not enjoyable, and nor should it be. At times it is harrowing to observe and Ayer has ensured every shot is truthful, even if the plot is rather more fantastic than realistic. The production design is remarkable with ankle-deep mud hindering escaping refugees while rubble smoulders around them. Even the peripheral shots are crafted with wince inducing care from the crushed and humiliated POWs pressed against wire to the desperate woman hacking at the carcass of a fallen horse for food.
But though Fury is often difficult to watch, Ayer's screenplay is also funny at times, lightning the atmosphere and allowing us to understand the camaraderie between Wardaddy, Bible (Shia LaBeouf), Gordo (Michael Peña), Coon-Ass (Jon Bernthal) and Norman. Though their actions are frequently unjustifiable, Ayer is careful to make them understandable without giving them a rose-tinted glow. That they regard the breaking of Norman's spirit as an achievement and an imperative is a damning statement about their war thus far. It is little wonder that so many veterans refused to discuss their experiences of war.
Steven Price's score takes us back to the atmospherics of his Oscar-winning composition for Gravity. Again, his work is powerful, mechanical and intense, accentuating the harrowing visuals beautifully.
The final act of Fury is a Custer's last stand of epic proportions. It is unrealistic and portrays the SS not as evil but as thoroughly inept. No, there is little chance of such a stand off occurring or lasting so long but Fury is, after all, a work of fiction set against a very real, actual horror. The Boys Own adventure heroics are forgivable in a film of warfare when no pretence has been made of this being a real occurrence.
I've read a couple of other reviews in the 'established' magazines/newspapers and there seems to be a snobbery about Rage, with them awarding low ratings. I don't see the issue. Nothing will have the impact that Saving Private Ryan did with the Omaha beach scenes. In that, Spielberg set a whole new benchmark with visual impact. But here Ayre takes us back to similar emotions and doesn't pull any punches in his depiction of the depravity to which some will stoop and the heroism that a few will attain.
Fury is not a fun war movie. War is horrific and we should not fool ourselves into believing otherwise. In that, Fury is a triumph.
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