Review: "Fury" Isn't As Impressive As Its Cast

Wesley Emblidge ‘17 / Emertainment Monthly Assistant Editor

“Ideals are peaceful,” says Don ‘Wardaddy’ Collier (Brad Pitt), “History is violent.” He’s broaching a mildly interesting idea there, but after that line Fury never really feels the need to further examine it. Writer and director David Ayer never really feels the need to go much further than saying two things: war is hell, and look at how cool this tank is.
Ayer throws the audience to the front lines of World War II in 1945, and follows the five-man tank crew led by Wardaddy. Their assistant driver has been killed and their replacement is the former typist Norman (Logan Lerman), who joined the army just eight weeks prior. The rest of the crew (Shia LaBeouf, Jon Bernthal, and Michael Peña) are around, but the only real throughline in this  episodic war movie is Wardaddy getting Norman to adjust to life on the battlefield. This includes both a horrifying scene where Wardaddy forces Norman to kill a German soldier for the first time, but also a horrifyingly misogynistic section where he gets Norman laid. That latter part of the film is actually so bad, it makes you pray for the loud tank warfare that covers mostly the rest of the film.

Sadly, that warfare isn’t impressive. The tanks themselves are refreshingly very practical; the audience feels every bump the tanks go over and every hit from an enemy reverberates throughout. At first the tanks feel  new, and one big tank-on-tank fight towards the middle of the movie reminds viewers that tank warfare hasn’t even really been focused so much in films today. Yet Ayer doesn’t try to experiment with shooting the tank at all — everything is shot in a very standard, competent way that is occasionally thrilling, but one that almost screams for a bit of inspiration.  The car chase in Drive kept the camera inside the car the whole time, or of the claustrophobia soldiers stuck inside the tank must experience. Ayer would rather show the tank crushing dead soldier’s skulls or blowing up another building.
On the other hand, Fury is a big step up for Ayer. Go one step back in the director’s filmography and you’ll find this year’s Sabotage, an ugly and laughable DEA thriller with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Fury isn’t one of the worst films of the year, so it’s already a step up, but Ayer (and his End of Watch cinematographer Roman Vasyanov) shoot everything very clearly, mostly eschewing shaky-cam and going for a more traditional style. It doesn’t suggest Ayer as a reliable director, but rather one who is improving and could maybe direct a great film one day (given the right material, which his screenplay Fury doesn’t have).

Pitt is the most reliable asset in Fury, playing Wardaddy as a sort of toned down Tyler Durden. He’s not afraid to be, at times, terrifying and unlikable, and even though the film isn’t close to Pitt’s best work, it shows that he’s still interested in trying out new things. The rest of the cast struggled with poorly written characters and arcs, but they do the best they can with what Ayer gave them.
Fury shouldn’t (but possibly could be) be an Oscar contender. It’s a sloppy, uninteresting, and uninventive war movie. At least Sabotage is memorable for how awful it was; nothing in Fury is likely to stick with you a few hours after you see it.
Overall Grade: C

Watch The Trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OGvZoIrXpg