War is hell. And in case you had missed that memo, David Ayer (Training Day, End Of Watch) is here to remind you – again, again and again.

For if Fury is one thing, it's a relentless, circular immersion in the living hell that was the end of World War 2 as Allies closed in on retreating German forces. Leading one such group is Sgt Don 'Wardaddy' Collier (Brad Pitt - World War Z) whose platoon has been whittled down to one lone tank which he and four soldiers are pushing through enemy lines.

Ayer seems an unlikely match for this aspiring companion to Saving Private Ryan, better known as he is for abrasive, slam-bam actioners like The Fast and the Furious. However, that's largely what Fury is – an all out assault that aims to drop you in the heat of the action as Collier's team is picked off tank by tank, soldier by soldier as they press forward against overwhelming odds.

Penned by the director, Fury also aims to be a character piece given focus by raw recruit Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman - The Perks of Being A Wallflower). He's taken under Collier's angry wing and given a sharp lesson about the reality of war, and how sympathy for the German's has no place in Collier's world. At least, that's Ayer's aim.

In reality, with the notable exception of one beautifully written dinner scene, Fury quickly boils down to the cinematic equivalent of a Commando comic. As tracer fire fills the screen, Collier and his men have little to say beyond grunting incomprehensible military tactics while German forces become textbook clichés who bark fearful commands before being mowed down in the field.

There is a gritty reality to it all – dirt, blood and guts sit centre stage – while Ayer assaults the screen visually and audibly: prepare for an extremely noisy, seat-shaking experience. All of which would be fine if not for the tang of recruitment propaganda that underpins the entire film (an odd alliance for Pitt). Here's a story that clearly endorses the US as the World's Sheriff, one who will always fight 'them' for the good of 'us'. One that will keep going until the bitter end, no matter how much hell they endure (or create).

As uncomfortable as that proposition is, Fury is further undermined by a lack of tangible back story as grouchy Collier and his men disappear under the impossible weight of battle. Perhaps that's the point – war flattens everything, war is hell. But this is a point long since made and made better in a dozen better films; it's a theme to which Ayer brings nothing new. However for new recruits to the US war machine at whom this has been pitched, perhaps he has.

// COLIN FRASER

Previewed at Events Cinemas, George St, Sydney on 20 October 2014




Hollywood has churned out a number of exceptional war films over the years and David Ayer‘s (End Of Watch, Training Day) 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 – 12 Years A Slave), is sent on a deadly mission in Nazi Germany. They are an ethnic mix of the American everyman (fine performances by Michael Peña – American Hustle, Jon Bernthal – The Wolf Of Wall Street and Shia LaBeouf – Transformer: Dark Of The Moon), 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 – Noah), 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’ (X-Men) 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 (End Of Watch) 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. This 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.

// SALT

Previewed at Events Cinemas, George St, Sydney on 20 October 2014