Brad Pitt is back in World War 2 and David Ayer once again proves his great potential as a filmmaker...
Fury is written and directed by David Ayer and stars Brad Pitt alongside Logan Lerman, Shia LaBeouf, Michael Pena and Jon Bernthal and revolves around a group of 5 soldiers who operate inside the tank "Fury" and their violent experiences during the closing days of World War 2.
Now this film does a have a fantastic cast of actors but the real star of Fury in my opinion is director David Ayer. The film displays violence, blood, gore and death in all of its glory and that is really what I respected about it; it didn't shy away from the realities of war. It is traumatic and soldiers would have experienced events like the ones depicted in the movie. Saving Private Ryan is my favourite war movie ever and its so effective still because it doesn't hold back. Fury does similar things to Saving Private Ryan and that is one of the reasons I had a pretty fun experience with it.
Ayer doesn't only make use of some really haunting war imagery through eerie tracking shots, but he also knows what he is doing when it comes to constructing an action sequence. The choreography, the editing and the way it was shot all came together to create impactful and engrossing action set pieces. The film didn't use quick cuts, the camera wasn't shaking around. The action was edited superbly and you could actually see what was going on!
Brad Pitt leads the cast and the group of soldiers and he puts in a finely tuned performance where he doesn't cross the line into a "look at me I'm an actor" type role. His character isn't the most likeable person on the planet but he does have a lot of redeemable qualities, hence why towards the films finale (which by the way culminates with some breath-taking tension), I was routing for the man.
Logan Lerman is the best performer by far and his work is pretty incredible in this film. Out of all the characters in the tank, he is the one I was routing for to survive, which was a good thing because that was what the movie wanted me to feel! His character is the most relatable one by far and you can really connect with him once you start to put yourself in his shoes. Brad Pitt's character makes him do something which is strongly against his moral code about 45 minutes in, and the scene impacted me a lot because I don't think I could have done it! He starts the movie off as a real "fish-out-of-water" character and I was very happy he didn't stay like that for the whole thing because that would've gotten annoying very quickly...
The supporting work is good but my god the rest of the crew are absolute dickheads! Jon Bernthal's character especially was one I was actually routing to die, which is absolutely NOT what the film wants you to think. The other 2 are unlikeable and as a result, you don't care about them. If I had a strong emotional attachment to the characters, the film's finale would've gone up a level to astronomical greatness. But since I didn't care about 3 out of the 5, it didn't quite even if it was still really intense.
The film does grind to a halt for about 20-30 minutes in the middle and the scene didn't really do much for me in terms of providing interesting dialogue, plot continuation or character development. It was just a scene which was put there that could have been taken out. Had it been, it wouldn't have dragged for 20 minutes and the film would've been more cohesive and would have stuck to its lightening fast pacing. I also wasn't a fan of the visual effects used for gunfire; to me they looked like lasers. But that is just a small nit-pick!
Fury was a really fun experience and is a good war movie that I recommend you see:
Rating - B+
1 sentence summary - David Ayer is the star in a war film which does not hold back on violence and death and offers up some great entertainment through some intense action sequences.
Thanks for reading,
Matt
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