Hell is Other People

Rating: 4/10 (10 January 2016)

"Fury" is probably one of the bloodiest films I've ever seen. The story follows a young machine-gunner on his first (and hopefully last) mission in a Sherman tank as the US Army invades Nazi Germany in 1945. Brad Pitt is the tank's ruthless commander, determined to make a man out of the new recruit using the time-tested methods of rape, murder, and general mayhem.
I've noticed a funny thing about movie violence lately: the level of my disgust varies depending on who's inflicting the violence on whom. If the story's protagonists are the ones getting hurt or killed, I will empathize with them and leave the film suitably affected. However, if the heroes are the ones doing the killing, I will feel merely sickened. There's a whiff of sadism about watching Pitt and his crew blow apart enemy soldiers from the safety of their tank, and a certain perverse satisfaction in the gruesome finale.
All this suggests that the filmmakers miscalculated. If they wanted to tell me that war is hell, they've succeeded; but if they wanted to make me sympathize with the soldiers on the front lines, they've missed their mark. Pitt's crew are bloodthirsty psychopaths to a man, and not worthy of my sympathy. The level of violence -- raw, gritty, at times grotesque -- might be realistic, but what purpose does it serve if it only makes me want to turn the film off? The film seems to have been produced by and for the kind of people who are more interested in the weapons and ammunition -- and their horrific effects on human bodies -- than in why those weapons were used. The battle scenes in "Fury" are recreated with reverence and awe, but not a lot of logic.
Halfway through the film is an intermission in a German town. Pitt discovers two young women in an apartment, and hosts an impromptu dinner party for his men. For a moment he becomes almost admirable, as his refined Southern manners are contrasted with the animal antics of his men, but the scene goes from bad to worse when we learn that his motives were simply to get the new recruit in bed with a German girl. This is rape masquerading as a manly coming-of-age ritual, every bit as sickening as the violence.
It's hard for me to argue against any film that presents war as dehumanizing and destructive, as "Fury" accomplishes quite well. I'm also reluctant to condemn a film that implicates the audience in its crimes. But "Fury" assaults the viewer so relentlessly that it ends up causing resentment, and finally apathy. When the credits start to roll, you'll want to turn it off and forget all about it.