By Bob Garver<\/p>\n
\u201cFury\u201d is a brutal war movie that wants to provide a jarring, emotional experience. It succeeds on the first front, though its emotional moments do feel forced. It\u2019s trying to be Oscar bait, but I don\u2019t see it getting many nominations outside of its admittedly impressive sound effects. Audiences are supposed to see it and say, \u201cIt\u2019s not pretty, but it\u2019s powerful.\u201d It\u2019s definitely not pretty, but I don\u2019t think it has quite enough redeeming qualities to be considered powerful.<\/p>\n
The story follows a five-man tank crew in Germany during World War II. Brad Pitt plays Collier, the leader. Serving under him are characters played by Shia LeBeouf, Michael Pena and Jon Bernthal. You\u2019ll probably think of them respectively as the American guy with the moustache, the Mexican guy with the moustache and the guy with the funny hair. LeBeouf is actually quite good here, much more tolerable than he is in \u201cTransformers\u201d and real life. Pena is a disappointment, doing little more than blending in when he\u2019s usually the best thing about whatever he\u2019s doing. It\u2019s Bernthal who steals the show as the most antagonistic member of the team who believes that his bullying tactics are completely appropriate.<\/p>\n
New to the team is Norman (Logan Lerman) a typist randomly assigned to the field. He has no idea what he\u2019s doing and it\u2019s arguable that his incompetence leads to the deaths of fellow soldiers. Yet it\u2019s not an annoying incompetence since it\u2019s clear that he\u2019s simply not ready. The character is meant to be a stand-in for the non-soldiers in the audience who wouldn\u2019t know what they would do if they were suddenly thrown onto the battlefield.<\/p>\n
The crew goes from one battle to another with too little time to lick their wounds in between. The most notable non-battle scene comes in a small German town when Collier and Norman invade the home of two German women and take them prisoner while somewhat forcefully forming a bond with them. There is a lot of tension in this scene, but it would be more impactful if it didn\u2019t go on for what seems like forever.<\/p>\n
As for the battle scenes, they are of course the highlight of the movie. You can hear the terror in every gunshot and explosion, and several visceral images make for haunting memories. On the other hand, I can\u2019t say I agree with the film\u2019s decision to track bullets with colorful flares. The last thing this supposedly highly-realistic film needs to be doing is reminding me of \u201cStar Wars.\u201d Also, in the otherwise-epic climactic sequence, it\u2019s a little ridiculous that the enemy soldiers are such poor fighters that our heroes can hold them off in such a drawn-out battle.<\/p>\n
What disappointed me most about this movie is that we get very little sense of what it feels like to spend an extended amount of time inside a WWII-era tank. It\u2019s not that we never see the inside of one, but the glimpses that we do get make it appear suspiciously roomy. I never got a true sense of the inevitable discomfort and claustrophobia.<\/p>\n
\u201cFury\u201d is definitely a \u201cgritty\u201d war movie (I\u2019d say \u201cdirty,\u201d but that would imply something else). Everything is covered in dust, mud and general grime. It\u2019s even really hard to follow the action in the final battle because there\u2019s so much dirt and smoke in the air. What I\u2019m saying is that it\u2019s an unpleasant movie, not that it claims to be anything else. You have to be in just the right kind of mood to get anything out of \u201cFury,\u201d but as long as you are, I think you\u2019ll find it to be a decent movie.<\/p>\n
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Two Stars out of Five.<\/p>\n
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\u201cFury\u201d is rated R for strong sequences of war violence, some grisly images, and language throughout. Its running time is 134 minutes.<\/p>\n
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