Fury

The opening of David Ayer’s World War II picture establishes the brutality of the characters in the aftermath of battle when the film suddenly cuts to black, as if to deny the viewer any sense of hope or triumph, little though it may be. The screen then fades in to a makeshift Allied camp where the soldiers are all dirty and exhausted, spent to the point that they look less like human beings than just empty bodies. This isn’t the “Good War” that we see so often from Hollywood, where combat is almost secondary to soldiers hanging out, and even if the battles are bloody there’s still a strong sense of righteousness. Fury is war at its barest, simplest level, just one group of people killing another.

The setting is Germany in April 1945, when the Allies were marching across the country, and the depleted German forces were conscripting kids to fight. The film depicts this through the eyes of the crew of a Sherman Tank whose nickname gives the movie its title: the leader Staff Sergeant “Wardaddy” (Brad Pitt), three hardened vets who’ve been with him the whole war (Shia LaBeouf, Michael Peña, and Jon Bernthal), and a green young soldier (Logan Lerman) brought in to replace the fifth crewmember (we don’t see his death, but do get a glimpse of the gruesome aftermath). Even though the war is nearing its end, Fury’s crew and their division still face resistance and bloodshed as they take enemy territory one town, one field, or one patch of road at a time.

The battle scenes are very well done, edited superbly to add the claustrophobic horror of being enclosed in steel on top of the intensity of combat. But much of the fighting is of a different breed than most war movies. Most battle scenes post-Saving Private Ryan consist of the characters surrounded by chaos on all sides. Here, there’s a methodical monotony to the combat. Soldiers die on both sides until one is either wiped out or surrenders, then the victors just move on. No punches are pulled with the blood and gore, but also, the film doesn’t linger on any of the carnage. Death is just a part of the routine in war.

The cast has a terse earnestness that’s appropriate, and frankly, they seem more realistic because they don’t display any of the hailed warrior clichés like brotherhood or nobility. They have a certain camaraderie, but it seems out of familiarity and necessity to stay alive more than anything. They’re abrasive to one another and get on each other’s nerves. The film’s “come together” moment is less a display of togetherness than a mutual acceptance of inevitability. The few bits of humor are pitch black and do little to cut the bleakness of their situation. Even in the few breaks from battle, such as a brief interlude in a German town, they are broken. They share stories about what they’ve seen to counter the “Good War” myth, but much of the acting doesn’t need words. It’s all in their faces: their expressions, their glum, empty glares hinting at the unimaginable. It’s so simple but very convincing.

Simplicity is what makes the picture as a whole so effective. There’s no mention of the politics or ideologies clashing in the war, and aside from the 1945 date given, no reference to events hinting at the light at the end of the tunnel. It’s just the grim reality of the front line, all guts and nothing even looking like glory. And rejecting anything more than that only makes it more timeless.