I’ve always enjoyed films about war, even over Westerns, which is basic heresy in the religion that is American cinema. War films can either be your basic “action” type or simply use the frame of war for a dramatic turn with little combat. Or, a filmmaker can combine both, but it is trickier to achieve a positive result. Today, I’m looking at one of the positives with “Fury” from 2014 and easily combines the two and does a solid job of not over-saturating either the battle action or the drama. You get a hefty dose of both in “Fury,” but neither spoils the other for you. “Fury” also has excellent special effects with the combat scenes.
‘Fury’
(2014; 134 minutes; rated R; directed by David Ayer and starring Brad Pitt, Shia LeBeouf and Michael Pena)
WAR IS DIRTY, VIOLENT … ESPECIALLY FOR THIS TANK
My main complaint about the World War II movie “Fury” isn’t about combat or how the special effects work (great). It isn’t about the quality of the cast (also great). But, that the movie focuses on five combat stereotypes and the audience is fortunate that the director and cast elevated the all-too-many-times done formula of a war movie.
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“Fury” is the name of the U.S. M4 Sherman tank and its commander is Brad Pitt as “Don ‘Wardaddy’ Collier,” who’s a grizzled, tough veteran who speaks German and hates any SS troops with a white-hot intensity that basically spells death to those of the SS who cross his path.
After that stereotype, you get the driver (tough, but a good guy); the loader (weird, but solid when it hits the fan); the gunner (a Bible-thumper who kills with the best of them); and the newbie (who has to kill to establish himself after being a coward early). Whew! As I already noted … a bunch of stereotypes you’ve seen in war films for pretty much as long as you’ve been watching war movies.
However, “Fury” forces grudging respect with the work by each of the actors in fleshing out the characters.
In the story of “Fury,” you get a Sherman tank at the center as the U.S. Army and its Allies drive deep into Germany in April 1945. The war is only days away from ending (as we know now and many realized then), but the combat was still there and the movie shows the grit and dirt of combat life.
With the exception of tracers from machine guns and tank cannon, “Fury” is shot almost monochromatic. Legendary director Billy Wilder’s Oscar-winning “Stalag 17” from 61 years earlier was shot in black-and-white because the vast majority of movies at the time were in B/W, but that made the film’s authenticity of the gritty, griminess of POW camp life.
So, the cinematography of “Fury” all too easily conveys the desperation and gloom that war can achieve of soldiers at the front.
With early scenes establishing “Wardaddy’s” single-devotion to being a hardass and the other four in the tank crew being their own stereotype, “Fury’s” opening scenes show that one of its tankmen has been killed and in comes the newbie that you know will stumble, fall, be a coward and doubt himself.
After being forced to execute a captured Nazi who was wearing a U.S. soldier’s greatcoat, the newbie starts a transformation that brings him up to the proper status as a killer in everyone’s eyes.
“Fury” also has the obligatory scene of Pitt and the newbie going into an German’s apartment and finding two women after the U.S. force captures another town and begins to get friendly with its now-docile occupants.
The interplay between the two men and the two women is solid and sharpens when the rest of the tank’s crew shows up and begins making noise like they want some action from the women. Pitt closes them down and soon the tank is on its way again.
Let’s slow down a moment at this point and take a look at the primary cast:
- A two-time Oscar and two-time Golden Globe winner (not for this one), Pitt is as watchable on screen in “Fury” as in any of his other films, but in a somewhat different way. In this one, he’s a bit more stoic and doesn’t give you much of a peek as to what’s underneath. Still, he commands your attention in every scene. I like Pitts’ work in the “Ocean’s” series remakes as well as “Moneyball” (click here to read my review) and the underrated and little-remembered “Killing Them Softly” (click here to read my review). He won his first Oscar as co-producer of “12 Years a Slave” and the second as supporting actor in “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood” (click here to read my review). He’s been nominated for five other Oscars including for acting and best-picture producer for “Moneyball” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Twelve Monkeys.” He was nominated for five Globes, too. Click here to see all his nominations and awards …
- Shia LaBeauf plays gunner “Boyd ‘Bible’ Swan.” He has had so much controversy in his life that while I cannot ignore his excellent work in this one, I’m not going to write any more about him.
- Michael Pena plays driver “Trini ‘Gordo’ Garcia” and his Hispanic heritage catches some flak from Pitt’s acidic tongue and could be expected of that era. Pena is completely solid in the presentation of his character and you won’t find a flaw in his performance. He knows how to act and the movie reflects his talent. It was too bad that Pena was in one of Hollywood’s all-time stinkers with “CHIPS” (click here to read my review) and he’s also been in “The Martian” (click here to read my review) as well as “American Hustle.” He has nearly 100 acting credits since the first in 1994. PS: Pena spells his last name “Peña,” but I dropped the accented letter because the WordPress search engine wouldn’t allow you to find him on my site with the accent.
- A Primetime Emmy nominee, Jon Bernthal is “Grady ‘Coon-Ass’ Travis” and is the character with a bit more scattered focus on what makes him tick. He rough and tough, but doesn’t have the overriding devotion to anything (such as “Bible’s” religion or “Wardaddy’s” singular purpose as a commander) that would elevate his character above any of the others. In any case, Bernthal, too, is solid, but, if you’re handing out rankings, he’s fifth after the other primary cast members. Bernthal was in Martin Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street” the year before “Fury” and has also been in “King Richard” and played Lee Iacocca in “Ford v Ferrari” (click here to read my review). He’s a prolific actor with 71 acting credits by mid-2024 from a career that began in 2002.
- Logan Lerman plays “Norman Ellison” and he would gain the nickname “Machine,” but not until he proved himself to the crew. Lerman has the character with the best opportunity to show emotion … and he does well with the whole spectrum from something akin to cowardice to being scared to not wanting to kill to killing and finally understanding the motivations of all his tankmates. Lerman was 22 when the film made its premiere and so as a young actor he was given a very choice role and knocked it out of the park. I haven’t seen Lerman in any other film or TV show. He was in the 2011 film “The Three Musketeers” and was in “3:10 to Yuma” and “The Patriot.”
- Anamaria Marinca plays “Irma” and Alicia von Rittberg plays “Emma” and they are cousins living together in the town captured by the U.S. and they play reluctant host to Pitt and Lerman. They have little to work with except for having to show initially the outlying fear and then throughout their scenes their underlying fear as women at the mercy of whatever soldier arrives in their town. Marinca has been in “Housekeeping for Beginners” as well as “The Bike Thief,” while von Rittberg’s work has mostly been in German cinema and TV.
Other supporting actors are solid and do good work, such as Scott Eastwood as “Sgt. Miles” (Scott is the son of screen legend Clint Eastwood) and tank commanders in their interactions with “Wardaddy,” but I’m not going to take time to single out any individual.
To head “Fury” to its climax, the group is part of a four-tank mission to go to a crossroads and hold it for the Allied forces. Along the way, a German Tiger I tank destroys three of the four and you know which one survives. The Sherman then reaches the crossroads only to hit a mine and become disabled.
Pitt decides to stay but tells the others to leave. Naturally, they decide to stay and a battle against an SS force is the climax to the film.
** SPOILER ALERT ** SPOILER ALERT **
In case you haven’t seen “Fury,” then this is the major spoiler you might want to avoid.
All but the newbie die during the battle and he survives by going out the escape hatch in the Sherman’s bottom plate and pretending to be dead. An SS youth spies him under the tank, but doesn’t say anything and walks away – a nice touch by the director, who also wrote the screenplay.
** SPOILER ALERT ENDS **
All in all, “Fury” has great combat scenes that equal those in “Saving Private Ryan,” including dismemberment of an infantryman and the decapitation of a tank commander. However, the action in “Fury” is much shorter in duration than “Saving Private Ryan” and, for 24 minutes, it hammered home in opening scenes the death and dismemberment of combat.
I’m not sure “Fury” has enough staying power over time that you’ll find in “Saving Private Ryan” (click here to read my look at it) territory or even of some of the classic war films such as “The Longest Day” about the D-Day invasion of WWII. Its actors are wonderful; the script is intelligent; and, thankfully, it didn’t have the war-film stereotype of one of the soldiers delivering a baby (as happened in “The Big Red One” – click here to read my review).
NOTE: I wasn’t able to find out why filmmakers had Pitt armed with a German Sturmgewehr 44 (StG 44) as his personal weapon. Although the Allied soldiers sometimes used captured weaponry, frontline soldiers didn’t often because of the widespread availability of ammunition for U.S. weapons. Also, I’m unsure how a tank commander would have managed to get one of the rifles as a member of infantry would have first pickings on the battlefield. Of course, the StG 44 looks cool and isn’t often portrayed in WWII flicks, so that works in this one. The StG 44 was the world’s first assault rifle and, despite Russian denials, influenced the design of the legend-to-come AK-47.
“Fury” was the 34th ranked film with $85.2 million in ticket sales, according to Box Office Mojo. The No. 1 film was “Guardians of the Galaxy” with $332.9 million and coming in second was “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1” with $313.2 million. At third was “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” with $259.7 million. Here is the only other film from 2014 that I’ve reviewed for my blog:
- “Draft Day” (bad sports effort) – click here for my review
Assorted cast and film notes (via IMDb.com):
Eastwood riding on the Sherman tank brings back memories of his father riding on “Oddball’s” Sherman tank in the WWII movie “Kelly’s Heroes” (click here to read my review) from 1970.- Directly from IMDb.com: “Sergeant Lafayette G. Pool was the highest scoring tank commander of the U.S. Army in World War Two, where he is credited with 12 confirmed German tank kills and 258 other German vehicles destroyed, all accomplished in France from June 27 to September 19, 1944. Pool’s real-life nickname was War Daddy, so one must assume that Brad Pitt’s tank commander character also being known as ‘Wardaddy’ must be an implied tribute to Pool.”
- Over his career, Pitt has been nominated for an award 227 times.
- The tank and its crew is part of the S. Army’s Second Armored Division, known as “Hell on Wheels.” The unit was made inactive in 1995.
- Directly from IMDb.com: “The cut on Shia LaBeouf‘s face was real. He inflicted it himself each time it was necessary, to add another layer of realism to his performance.” Wow. Obviously, Shia takes acting to the extreme, too.
- Reportedly, LaBeouf was so unpopular with the majority of the filmmaking community of actors, stagehands, etc., that he was set up in a nearby bed-and-breakfast rather than being with everyone else.
- Sony’s corporate computers were hacked in 2014 and a copy of “Fury” was downloaded and available illegally on the internet just two months after its release (10 years ago, films were not released on disk until much later).
- Finally and directly from IMDb.com: “(‘Fury’ is) … the second time a genuine Tiger I tank has been used in the production of a WWII film. It features ‘Tiger 131’ from the UK’s Bovington Tank Museum, the only fully functioning Tiger I tank in the world.”
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