FURY
****
Director: David Ayer
Screenwriter: David Ayer
Principal cast:
Brad Pitt
Michael Peña
John Bernthal
Shia LeBeouf
Logan Lerman
Jim Parrack
Country: USA/China/UK
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 134 mins.
Australian release date: 23 October 2014
Hollywood has churned out a number of exceptional war films over the years and David Ayer‘s Fury sits up there with some of the better ones, but not the great ones. This is not an enjoyable film, for it depicts the basest side of human nature, where soldiers are placed in a position of unimaginable horror and where the only means of survival is to kill the enemy before they have the chance to kill you.
Indeed, this is the basic message of the film, which is set in the dying days of WWII: that in order to survive, you will have to do unspeakable things or unspeakable things will be done to you. Unlike other war films, it does not glorify battle; on the contrary, it shows how the fight is often undertaken in circumstances that are dirty and bloody and where niceties like the Geneva Convention don’t enter the equation… or the battlefield.
An exhausted group of servicemen, crammed together in a Sherman tank under the command of Sergeant Don ‘Wardaddy’ Collier (Brad Pitt), is sent on a deadly mission in Nazi Germany. They are an ethnic mix of the American everyman (fine performances by Michael Peña, Jon Bernthal and Shia LaBeouf), who rely on each other for emotional support and create a brotherhood bond that is amplified by the close confines of the tank.
Pitt is like a kind of Godfather figure, who presides over his men, giving them orders that they do not question. When a rookie soldier, Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), joins them after the death of one of their close-knit crew, ‘Wardaddy’ takes him under his wing, making him toughen up (in a scene that makes you cringe in your seat) as he teaches the recruit his philosophy of war - “you are here to kill them, they are here to kill you.”
Ayers covers all the atrocities of war, from the carnage of the battlefield to the mistreatment of women (although implied here, rather than shown) when the victorious GIs march into town and, above all, the confusion and fear, the ‘fog of war’ - you can almost smell it coming off the screen. This is a visceral experience and one that makes you shudder at the atrocities that are committed in the pursuit of victory.
Andrew Menzies’ production design is totally realistic, from the mud on the battlefield to the state of the inside of the Sherman tank. The Russian cinematographer Roman Vasyanov’s vision is stark and equally realistic and the final shot, as the camera cranes up over the battlefield, while not original, reminds you of other war films that have used the same effect to show the horror of war. Fury is not Apocalypse Now, but its sensibility is not that far removed from “the horror” Brando’s Colonel Kurtz defines in that film. Pitt gives another fine performance and may well be in line for an Oscar nomination next year.
Screenwriter: David Ayer
Principal cast:
Brad Pitt
Michael Peña
John Bernthal
Shia LeBeouf
Logan Lerman
Jim Parrack
Country: USA/China/UK
Classification: MA15+
Runtime: 134 mins.
Australian release date: 23 October 2014
Hollywood has churned out a number of exceptional war films over the years and David Ayer‘s Fury sits up there with some of the better ones, but not the great ones. This is not an enjoyable film, for it depicts the basest side of human nature, where soldiers are placed in a position of unimaginable horror and where the only means of survival is to kill the enemy before they have the chance to kill you.
Indeed, this is the basic message of the film, which is set in the dying days of WWII: that in order to survive, you will have to do unspeakable things or unspeakable things will be done to you. Unlike other war films, it does not glorify battle; on the contrary, it shows how the fight is often undertaken in circumstances that are dirty and bloody and where niceties like the Geneva Convention don’t enter the equation… or the battlefield.
An exhausted group of servicemen, crammed together in a Sherman tank under the command of Sergeant Don ‘Wardaddy’ Collier (Brad Pitt), is sent on a deadly mission in Nazi Germany. They are an ethnic mix of the American everyman (fine performances by Michael Peña, Jon Bernthal and Shia LaBeouf), who rely on each other for emotional support and create a brotherhood bond that is amplified by the close confines of the tank.
Pitt is like a kind of Godfather figure, who presides over his men, giving them orders that they do not question. When a rookie soldier, Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), joins them after the death of one of their close-knit crew, ‘Wardaddy’ takes him under his wing, making him toughen up (in a scene that makes you cringe in your seat) as he teaches the recruit his philosophy of war - “you are here to kill them, they are here to kill you.”
Ayers covers all the atrocities of war, from the carnage of the battlefield to the mistreatment of women (although implied here, rather than shown) when the victorious GIs march into town and, above all, the confusion and fear, the ‘fog of war’ - you can almost smell it coming off the screen. This is a visceral experience and one that makes you shudder at the atrocities that are committed in the pursuit of victory.
Andrew Menzies’ production design is totally realistic, from the mud on the battlefield to the state of the inside of the Sherman tank. The Russian cinematographer Roman Vasyanov’s vision is stark and equally realistic and the final shot, as the camera cranes up over the battlefield, while not original, reminds you of other war films that have used the same effect to show the horror of war. Fury is not Apocalypse Now, but its sensibility is not that far removed from “the horror” Brando’s Colonel Kurtz defines in that film. Pitt gives another fine performance and may well be in line for an Oscar nomination next year.