Movie Review: Fury

War is hell. It's one of the most tired cliches of all-time, but it's also painfully accurate. Most people will never know what its like to experience the atrocities of war firsthand, which makes its difficult to try and realistically recreate for a Hollywood movie. Like all affective war films, Fury articulates the horrors of war in the most authentic way possible for a fictionalized piece of work.

Writer/director David Ayer doesn't hold anything back as he paints an extremely grim picture of World War II, and brutality of life on the battlefield. The extended battle sequences are brilliantly choreographed and sufficiently gruesome. Cinematographer Roman Vasyanov is the film's secret weapon for capturing the film's tense tank battles. The frequent changes from inside shots of tank to the carnage outside of it could've been disorienting, but Vasayanov has great control of the camera and seamless editing from Jay Cassidy and Dody Dorn makes the shots flow together organically. The unflinching depiction of wartime combat in Fury is without question one of the strongest I've ever seen in a film.

However whenever the gunfire ceases, Fury stumbles. Each member of the titular tank crew are painfully underwritten and come off more as caricatures than actual human beings. Logan Lerman plays the young kid who is scared shitless of war, Shia LaBeouf is a religious man that serves as the group's moral compass, Michael Pena is a drunk, Jon Bernthal is an ignorant redneck and Brad Pitt is the fearless leader who also acts as the glue that holds this ragtag group together. These archetypes sound familiar?  The performances from all five lead actors are competent, but their efforts are pretty much for naught  given how hollow their characters are. I know that this lack of character depth won't bother some people, I just it incredibly different to enjoy a film like this when the characters are so lifeless. There's some serious flaws in the writing when one of the lead characters dies, and you feel absolutely nothing as a viewer.  

Ayer's script becomes even more inept as it tries to manipulate the audience into showing empathy for these empty characters. Films that try to artificially generate emotion to resonate deeply with the audience really piss me off, and Fury is one of the harshest offenders of this in recent film history. An elongated scene in the middle of the film exists only so Lerman's character has a reason to overcome his fear of combat for the final standoff with the Nazis. The entire sequence is painfully contrived, and sets completely disingenuous final act of the film in motion. The hokey, insincere aura of the latter half of the film reaches its peak at the tail end of the climatic battle with a horde of Nazi forces. The final few minutes are so god damn ridiculous and unbelievable that I almost screamed obscenities out loud in the theater. How Ayer thought this a reasonable conclusion to the film entirely defies comprehension.   


Fury's well-crafted action setpieces are just enough to warrant a mild recommendation, but they're not nearly enough to get over how much of a wasted opportunity this film is. With this gifted cast, typically great director and unique premise for a war film, this very well could've been one of the all-time great entries in the genre. Instead, we're left with a film that has all the grit and none of the heart or brains that make great war films tick. If you want to see an Ayer-directed film about brotherhood and sacrifice with a strong, authentic emotional backbone, stay home and watch End of Watch on Netflix streaming.

3/5 Stars