Its climactic scene descends into Rambo territory, however outside of this David Ayer's Fury contains some impressively loud and brutal scenes of warfare.

Rating: 7/10 (10 November 2014)

I had been eagerly anticipating Fury, I had faith in it as director David Ayer proved his skill in creating searingly intense action sequences in End of Watch (2012), a film that had a palpable sense of danger. Despite Fury following a tank crew during WW2, I don't think it matched End of Watch's pervasive sense of looming peril, as the latter had a hyperrealism and an urban environment more familiar to me than a battleground, thank goodness.
The film opens with several lines of text explaining the situation, it's simple but rather chilling, informing the viewers that it's April 1945 and that the German defence is the most 'fanatical' the Allies have encountered in the European theatre.
Fury follows a tank crew comprising Don 'Wardaddy' Collier (Brad Pitt), a battle hardened veteran of North Africa and Europe; Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman) a timid rookie with only 8 weeks' training as a typist; Boyd 'Bible' Swan (Shia LaBeouf), the clichéd zealously religious southerner; Trini 'Gordo' Garcia (Michael Pena) and Grady 'Coon-Ass' Travis (Jon Bernthal), a genuinely hateful, obnoxious, rancid Neanderthal who regularly boiled my blood.
Fury's chief merit is its war scenes. The film features some excellent sound engineering, which was delivered to me by Vue's thunderingly loud sound system. Be prepared for the frenzied chatter of MG42s, the sudden, reverberating boom of artillery fire and the piercing shriek of tank shells ricocheting. The instantaneous, ceaseless death is executed well, men's lives end forever left, right and centre in the most brutal fashion, whether it's death by headshot, fire, explosives or tank tracks – it's anonymous slaughter on a massive scale. Like any combat-intensive war film should do, Fury leaves you feeling battered, however its power is unfortunately hindered by its stupid concluding battle.
With publicity photos of Brad Pitt posturing meanly with his cool hair, I had worried that Fury would be a Brad Pitt vehicle, a film in which Pitt is a gunslinging B-movie war hero instead of a real soldier. I felt my fears were being confirmed when in the first minute or so Pitt jumps off a tank and launches himself at a man on horseback, knocking him down and vehemently stabbing him in the eyes; however his Rambo emulation was generally kept at bay until the film's final battle, where his character and indeed the whole film goes awry.
War films and the moralising that comes with some can so easily become hackneyed, and there are times where the dialogue veered very closely to the trite 'war is hell' territory with lines such as 'You'll soon know what a man can do to another man.' delivered portentously and too early in the film by Gordo.
Characterisation also suffered from tired conventions at times; although LaBeouf went method actor for his character (he cut his face and pulled one of his teeth out), he rather wasted his commitment, as Boyd 'Bible' Swan is the tiringly familiar southern drawling preacher that, according to cinema, was present in every platoon. Saving Private Ryan was also guilty of this with Private Jackson (Barry Pepper), the stylishly ultra-accurate, cross-kissing sniper. Indeed, the areas that these characters hail from constitute the most religious region of the United States, their presence I suppose is entirely plausible, however I think they stink of stock character.
The worst instance of engagement breaking clichéd tosh happens at the beginning of the film's final scene, in which the heroic Wardaddy decides to fight a much, much larger SS division that possess both vehicles and a comprehensive arsenal of weapons. Initially, the men protest it, but of course one by one they declare that 'I'm stayin'!' I did much head shaking during this moment. Despite these brushes with cliché however, I felt that Fury didn't become a serious offender.
There's a protracted scene in which Wardaddy and Norman seek refuge in the apartment of a German mother and daughter. Initially, the scene is wrought with tension as you don't know the battle-hardened Wardaddy's intentions; rape of German women was commonplace, particularly by Soviet troops during and after the Battle of Berlin. However the scene eventually becomes overlong and rather misguided, the ambiguous tension is lost long before the expected payoff or denouement, a variety of which never arriving.
And now to the aforementioned final battle scene. I have read numerous arguments defending the scene's credibility, however the reasoning is invariably flimsy – demonstrably, the scene is very flawed indeed. I have heard some remarkable stories of bravery from WW2, the most recent one being Robert Cain (Jeremy Clarkson's father-in-law). Major Cain had been driven to a frenzy during Operation Market Garden, resigning himself to death and managing to disable or destroy six tanks using his deft skill with a 6-pounder anti-tank gun and, believe it or not, a two-inch mortar fired from his hip. Cain somehow survived the ordeal, winning a Victoria Cross for his gallantry. Despite such stories, there are just too many holes in Fury's last standoff; it's a lazily written stain on the film that breaks the momentum of the electrifying collection of war scenes that preceded it.
71%
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