A gritty well acted war film with an overblown ending

Rating: 8/10 (23 October 2014)

As much as I was personally anticipating Fury, I must admit to not being fully prepared for just what a visceral and uncompromisingly brutal film David Ayer's war tale is. Without question this is one of the starkest, dirtiest and most downright unflinching big-budget war films I've ever seen. Every bullet that flies past, and every dropped bomb that you feel is quite an experience, and its full credit to Ayer and his very talented cast that the film is the end product it is.
Fury opens without any fanfare, showing a smoke strewn battle field punctuated by a lone German officer on a white horse, but what happens next sets the tone for the entire film. Ayer cares not much for backstory, there are no training montages here and he cares only to thrust the viewer straight into the belly of life in the Great War, and more accurately life in a tank. This is one of Fury's greatest strengths; much like Wolfgang Petersons submarine-set masterpiece Das Boot, when the camera is in this confined space so too is the audience. It's not at all a comfortable experience, but as we see here, and know anyway, war is anything but comfortable. As Brad Pitt's "Wardaddy" tells Logan Lerman's fresh-from-the-office Norman: "Don't get attached to anybody" and "you're never safe," never do we feel that these men inside "Fury" are safe nor do we truly become attached to anyone. It's a feat for the film to achieve this, but also ultimately a downfall.
There is so much history to these characters in Fury, from Wardaddy's scarred back, through to their time in Africa, yet we remain largely un-privy to these events and it lessens the impact we feel for these men and their mission. The crew is all largely likable, with Pitt once more producing a star turn, but his ably supported by Lerman in what is a finely grown-up turn by him and The Walking Dead's Jon Bernthal in what is his best big screen role to date. Michael Pena is solid if not overwhelming, while brown bag wearing Shia LaBeouf is a weak point in a role that sees him crying at any given opportunity. It's one of the more memorable war parties we've been witness to in recent cinema history, and while it doesn't quite reach a Saving Private Ryan level of success in concerns to this, it's not far off.
Sadly though, no work by the actors could've truly saved the film's weakest and most disappointing element, its finale.
All the groundwork laid so solidly by Fury's opening stanzas and realistic approach to the war is almost entirely undone by the films last hurrah. Without entering too much into spoiler territory, to say that Fury's big showcase is overblown would be a massive understatement. It feels driven by a want to once more showcase Americans as one-man wrecking machines and actually feels like it belongs in another film. The actors are all still great, and the direction consistently engaging yet it can't help hide the fact that the film an entirely different beast in the last 30 – 40 minutes and it's sadly worse off for it.
Barring its ending, Fury is often close to masterpiece-like material, and all being said the film judged as a whole is still one of the more memorable and well-made war tales in recent memory. In setting out to show that war is hell and anything but glorious, Fury succeeds in all departments bar its misguided ending. It's always great to see Pitt command a role on film as he does here and it's also a relief that promising director Ayer has recovered from his disastrous Sabotage experience. For an encompassing war-set experience, Fury delivers on all fronts.
4 spat out bits of fried egg out of 5
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