Friday, October 24, 2014

A Tank That Serves as an Overseas Home

Two years ago, director David Ayer gave audiences a gritty and up-close-and-personal look at the Los Angeles Police Department in “End of Watch,” which was a dramatic and somewhat brutal look at one of our country’s largest police forces.  Before that, he brought us “Street Kings” and “Harsh Times,” and has written the screenplays for films such as “S.W.A.T.” and “Training Day.”  With these movies in his filmography, you can see that he has a tendency to focus on the heroes whose job it is to keep people safe.

Now, he brings us a movie about another kind of hero: the soldiers.  In Ayer’s new war film, “Fury,” he brings us to the battlefields of Germany during World War II.  Just like in his previous films, he shows us what it means to sacrifice everything to protect others.

In April 1945, the Allies make their last push into Nazi Germany in the final month of the European Theater during WWII.  Don “Wardaddy” Collier (Brad Pitt) commands a Sherman tank called “Fury” and it’s experienced five-man crew, which includes Boyd Swan (Shia LaBeouf), Grady Travis (Jon Bernthal) and Trini Garcia (Michael Peña).  After the group’s assistant driver dies in battle, Collier receives a newly enlisted typist, Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), as a replacement.  During the group’s mission to capture certain German territories, the group will learn that there are still many horrors of war to come before it can ultimately end.

Just as Brad Pitt displayed in “Inglourious Basterds,” he really knows how to play a tough and demanding military leader.  With the way Pitt plays his character, you can clearly see Collier’s battle-hardened sensibilities and his desire to get the most out of the soldiers he leads.  He’s a father figure to those who are under his command and wants to do what he can to prepare his crew for the fights to come.  

Ever since I saw Logan Lerman in “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” I’ve grown to appreciate him more as an actor.  He’s been maturing into a talented performer and his role requires him to give the most emotional performance of the film, and he accomplishes that task.  His character’s display of nervousness in being placed in the fields of battle for the first time serves as a way for us to imagine what all of those soldiers must have felt the first time they had to fight.  Although his character eventually gets used to killing his enemies, the scenes in which he struggles with the idea of doing so are some of the best in the film.

Despite the story placing a lot of focus on Pitt and Lerman’s characters, LaBeouf, Bernthal and Peña each get their own moments in the film that allow us to get an idea of the kind of people they are and how the war has affected them.

Despite a few war-movie cliches appearing here and there, David Ayer’s screenplay takes us on a harrowing wartime journey as we go on several missions with the tank’s crew as the intensity of the fighting increases.  There are a few battles during the movie, but they never become repetitive because they’re all staged differently, and in between these sequences, we are provided with moments that let the soldiers ruminate on what they are experiencing.

The story takes an interesting detour about halfway through that lasts around 20 minutes.  After the Allies take a German town, Don and Norman visit two women in an apartment and get to know them as people, not enemies.  During this scene, you see how the soldiers interact with the locals when there isn’t any fighting taking place.  It’s a break from the combat sequences that lets us see what these soldiers are like when they’re not in the middle of battle.

Director Ayer teams up again with “End of Watch” cinematographer Roman Vasyanav, and they use excellent camerawork to capture the chaos of war.  With the way the battle footage is shot, the two really give you a sense of the tremendous danger that the soldiers face in the film.

“Fury” brings you on a rather tough road, but Ayer makes it worth it with his evident admiration of real-world heroes.

Final grade: A-

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