I'm tired after watching this film... It was intensely engaging.

Rating: 10/10 (7 November 2014)

I am worn out after watching Fury. It was an intense film that left me tense throughout. I even found myself letting out deep sighs, as I was holding my breath without knowing. Fury is an amazing film, and a demanding experience.
I had a few doubts about certain parts of this film before seeing it. First, I am not a fan of Shia Labeouf. Second, the previews made Brad Pitt look like he was revisiting his role as Aldo Raine from Inglourious Basterds. Finally, as with most war films, there is a tendency to include a handful of worn out clichés.
Let me put the minds at ease of anybody that had those same worries. Labeouf was amazing in his role, and didn't ham up his character. Pitt may have looked like Aldo, but he was anything but. As far as clichés go, there were a couple. For instance, chambering a round in a gun that has been, or should have been, already chambered. For the most part, the film avoided clichés though.
I am a fan of war films. I have watched every kind from any country I can get them from. This has to be the best war film I have ever watched. Details are important in a war film, and those details were carefully provided in Fury. Everything looked like one would expect. Things were dirty, worn, and sometimes broken. Fury showcases a war, not a parade.
Speaking of parades, the US army didn't parade around like saviors in this. They were exhausted, angry, and fighting battles they didn't always win. There weren't showers, laundromats, or shoe shines. Fury portrays the war as violent, gruesome, gut-wrenching, wearisome, and grinding. Soldiers weren't all choir boys, and Fury made sure to portray that fact.
I can't speak on the technicals of the actual film making process, I'm not qualified, but I do know that there were beautiful shots throughout. The musical score only emphasized the emotion of each scene. It was truly beautiful. Adding to that beauty was the battle scenes.
The battle scenes were masterfully done. Bullets and shells flew through the air like one would expect. Not every pull of the trigger was a hit. Shells skipped along surfaces. Bullets came hard and fast. Earth moved with explosions and gun fire. The tracer rounds lit the screen up, as did the tanks shells exploding, especially those with Willy Pete, or white phosphorous, in them. So, during an extreme battle, there was violence dancing with visual beauty.
The main characters weren't fully fleshed out with back stories and motivations that were easily perceived, but I felt like this was one of the strongest points of the film. I still cared about each of the crew, but like them, I didn't want to know their whole bio. They were part of a strong tank crew, and their backgrounds were often nuanced.
The film didn't feel like it was supposed to be about the characters, it was much larger than that. The film is about a war that a generation of men and boys fought. This war involved killing and being killed. It wasn't pretty -- it was a dog fight. Every inch of land was taken, earned by those men. In that moment, there wasn't good or bad, there were just two sides trying to kill the other. Fury is about a war.
In closing, I highly recommend this film. It easily became my favorite war film, and that is saying a lot.