As solid as a tank, though it rings hollow when it tries to go for bigger emotions.

Rating: 7/10 (27 October 2014)

War is nasty business, and David Ayer has no intention of making it any less so in Fury, his bruising, dark and very violent World War Two drama. It's easy to be caught up in the fast, furious action of it: Ayer liberally peppers the film with explosions and gore. But that's not all there is to the film. While Ayer does lose track of it at a few points along the way, Fury, at its best, digs into some bitter and very hard truths about the sacrifice and loss - of blood, of life, of innocence - that must accompany a war, even one fought for a genuinely good cause.
The action and the narrative revolve around 'Fury', a five-man tank commandeered by Don 'Wardaddy' Collier (Brad Pitt). He's promised the men who serve with him - Bible (Shia LaBeouf), Gordo (Michael Pena) and Grady (Jon Bernthal) - to get them through the war alive. When they complete a mission that took out the rest of the platoon of tanks, the men meet their new assistant driver: Norman (Logan Lerman), a sweet young man who trained as a clerk and is painfully ill-suited for the rigours and demands of battle. Nonetheless, they are forced to become a unit and, finally, a team, as Fury trundles across Germany to free trapped American soldiers, capture towns, and cut off a battalion of top-notch SS soldiers.
Fury can be roughly divided into three acts, the first of which is easily the best and most thought-provoking. Many war movies set during World War Two are infused with at least a hint of nostalgia and romance - it's what naturally accompanies the notion that the Allies are fighting to free the world from the uncomplicated evil of Nazi Germany.
But Fury resolutely refuses to take that route. This is a film that stares the cold, hard nature of war in the face, and highlights the callous way in which it strips morality and innocence even from men who, as history tells us, are fighting on the right side. As the titular tank makes its way back to camp and out again, it becomes clear that the Allied soldiers are beaten and worn down by battle, their bodies and spirits caked in mud, blood and cynicism. The tanks roll over the corpses of the dead, pressing them - forgotten and lost - into the welcoming ground. It's a startlingly bleak picture to paint of the realities of the situation, one which highlights to an almost unbearable degree the monsters that are made in war: of men who have had to get used to killing nameless others as long as they're on the other side.
Less successful is the film's strange second act, set in a hollowed-out town 'freed' by the Americans. With Norman in tow, Don enters the apartment of an understandably edgy German woman, where the two find hot water, food and other bodily comforts. Shorn of the gory violence of the rest of the film, this segment feels strangely stagey: the characters are trapped in the oddest of situations, soldiers and civilians, enemies or friends, sat awkwardly around a dining table or in the bedroom. There are moments of almost heartbreaking insight: Don peeling off his shirt to reveal the wounds of battles past, or opening a box in which he's carefully stored precious items for a moment just like this one. But it also feels rushed and a bit silly, as Norman grows up off the battlefield and their fellow tank-mates turn up for some uncomfortably confrontational moments that should but don't quite pass for character development.
Ayer devotes the final act to a bloody, bitter battle, fought from within and around the tank in a bid to prevent SS soldiers from clashing with the Allied forces. It's a powerful climax, crammed full of incident and devastation, as each member of this ragged, raw team - a dysfunctional family, with Wardaddy as the patriarch - chooses whether to fight, and then must decide how they want to die. It manages to be rousing and repelling all at once, as bullets fly and grenades stir up mist and blood that paints itself across the tank. Indeed, Ayer makes it almost exhausting to watch, especially when the sequence goes on and on for just a little too long.
The cast is uniformly excellent. Pitt leads the charge with an electric performance, one that makes it possible to believe the hell Don has gone through to ensure his tank-mates can live. In a moment when he shrinks to the ground, tears shuddering out of him before he reins it all in again, you get a clear picture of the scars this man bears that can't be seen. Lerman again proves that he's a great actor outside of the Percy Jackson franchise, with a quite devastating array of shell-shocked reactions to the horrors Norman is forced to witness and commit. LaBeouf contributes unexpected gravitas in a tricky role but makes his character's constant reference to scripture something complex instead of potentially frustrating. Pena and Bernthal have less to do, but they both convince with the depth of their respective amiability and hostility towards Norman. In Bernthal's character, especially, it's possible to see that men who are not themselves strictly 'good' can fight for good causes too.
Is Fury one of the great war movies? Probably not. On occasion, it approaches magnificence in its depiction of the wear and tear of war - even for the eventual victors of the conflict. But, for every spine-chilling insight it provides into the monsters made of men in the heat of battle, the film also wanders off in odd directions - particularly in a middle section that feels deeply out of place and hugely rushed. That makes for rewarding, challenging but also frustrating viewing.