Film Review: Fury
“Fury” is a film among the crowded World War II genre, but what sets it apart from the others is the perspective from which the story is being told.
The movie follows the battle-tested crew of a tank named Fury, that has traveled from Northern Africa to France and now Germany where warfare and its aftermath are blatantly exposed.
“Fury” writer and director, David Ayer portrays brotherhood brilliantly, showing the confined tank quarters as “the best job I ever had.” Sgt. Don “Wardaddy” Collier (Brad Pitt) and his crew lost a fallen soldier in battle, replacing him was clerk-typist, Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), whose sensitive persona morphed to the disturbing sights of war after Wardaddy literally takes Norman’s hand to force his first kill.
The five-man crew amidst enemy lines: the Christian philosophizer, Boyd Swan (Shia LaBeouf); the Hispanic Nazi hunter, Trini Garcia (Michael Pena); the country mechanic, Grady Travis (Jon Bernthal); the war-scarred, Sgt. Don Collier (Brad Pitt); and the rookie of the tank, Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), whose initiation into the band of brotherhood is revealed through the bloody forecast of war.
The cast was incredible, each crew member portrayed the kinship of soldiers facing death beautifully.
Looking through the periscope, mutilated bodies lie dead with no end in sight for the soldiers. The gritty atmosphere of close quarters in the tank really brought it to life.
Ayer reflected on the sexual politics during warfare, in one of the only scenes shot outside of the tank in the home of a German woman and her pretty cousin, played by Anamaria Marcina and Alicia Von Rittberg.
Norman and Wardaddy make themselves at home while the women attend to their domestic needs. The women of the town are paraded around by the soldiers, leaving a dubious aftertaste of the lives of women affected by war.
While swimming through corpses, the post-traumatic visions of combat are portrayed so realistically in “Fury.”
It seems that while Ayer illuminates a patriotic conviction, he also presents the viewpoint of the Germans. In a scene where Sgt. Collier is forcing the hands of Norman to shoot a German in his back, the enemy is surrendering with his arms waving in the air. Ayer divulges into the emotions of all humans, enemy or ally.
Most American war films like “Saving Private Ryan” portray an overly patriotic theme, boosting American exceptionalism. Ayer approached this film with an objective mindset that wasn’t so spiteful towards other nations.