Fury - David Ayer
The brutality of war is realised here in a way I have never seen and it keeps humanity as well. This is such a well-told story.
It is so simple as well – just one tank and its crew. The overall battle and ever the tank’s orders are almost irrelevant as this perfectly puts us in Norman’s, Logan Lerman (Bullet Train, The Patriot), shoes.
At its heart, this is a story about the relationship between the crew members and their struggle to survive the war.
Norman is the hero that we follow. He is assigned to the tank after we meet the rest of the crew having survived a disastrous battle.
We follow them as they inculcate him into life in the tank. The crew have their ups and downs.
The might of the Nazi tanks is by far the most terrifying and this is exemplified by the crisis when a single Tiger Tank destroys three of the four American tanks.
In the end, they are a single tank sent to hold a crossroads to prevent a group of SS from reaching the Allies supply train. But only their captain, Don (Brad Pitt – The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, Snatch) knows what’s at stake.
The only other film that comes close to this in terms of capturing the brutality of war is Saving Private Ryan. The reason that this is better is because it better realises what it would have been like for the individual.
Every one of the characters in the tanks is losing their grip on sanity. They are trying to hold it together for themselves and each other. There is little talk of home or what came before or what is to come.
They all exist in the moment and the moment they are all likely to die horrifically. So they lighten the mood by hazing the new guy – getting and getting on with each other.
All we are told at the start of the film is that the Nazi tanks are better and that Hitler has ordered all Germans to fight.
The decision not to give us anything else to go on is fantastic. It allows us to live in the moment with the rest of the crew.
It’s great that all the characters are completely messed up by this horrific experience – it’s believable. Even Don is losing his mind.
The banter between the crew is brilliant. It rings true and sounds like something these characters would say to each other in real life.
The battle sequences are fantastically shot. Easy to see what is happening and well choreographed. This is what great war cinematography should look like.
They are terrifying and fast passed. But that is because of what we are watching not because of how it is shot.
All the characters are terrible. They have done some horrific things to survive. We don’t know this but it feels like it.
Normally this would be something the creative team would use to make us dislike the characters. But it is juxtaposed so well with good intentions that once again it rings true.
A great example of this is when Don forces Norman to kill a prisoner of war. Norman had caused the loss of another tank after not shooting a child soldier with a rocket launcher.
Don is doing something terrible but it is to protect Norman and the rest of the crew. Norman needs to be able to follow Don’s orders and kill whoever needs to be killed for them to survive.
Immediately after this Don is concerned that Norman hasn’t eaten anything all day and tells him to find some food. It is this juxtaposition that puts this film on another level.
The best scene in the film is shortly after they have taken the town—Don and Norman set up to have breakfast with two German women that they have found.
It is beautiful and heartwarming but is also on edge because you are not sure what Don might do – he makes it clear he will rape the girl.
But everything is coming along nicely until the rest of the group arrives and then it is super aggressive and tension-building. Don breaks it by saying that no one will ruin his meal – even though this isn’t true.
I love this film and think it is one of the best war films ever made. I highly recommend it
