It's hard to look at this film without recalling Brad Pitt's character, Aldo Raine, in Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino's hilarious nod to an often maligned genre, WWII movies.
Obviously, Raine and Fury's Don 'Wardaddy' Collier look similar, and even the haircuts are identical. But this is an entirely different kind of war movie, although similarities are there, given that both films are about American soldiers getting behind enemy lines and killing Nazis.
Set during the final months of World War II, Fury follows the fortunes of a US Army sergeant and his tank crew as the Allies make their final push into Nazi Germany.
Pitt's Wardaddy is the leader of a tank that's filled with battle-hardened soldiers including Shia LaBeouf as Boyd Swan, whose nickname 'Bible' derives from his tendency to quote scripture; Gordo (Michael Peña), a Mexican-American; and Coon-Ass (Jon Bernthal), a rather macho hillbilly type. File under: Real Men.
Into this gung-ho environment comes Norman Ellison (superbly played by Logan Lerman), a young and quite sensitive soldier who, until now, worked in a clerical position. Terrified of the prospect of killing or being killed and appalled by the callous nature of the conflict, he's the extreme opposite of everyone else in Wardaddy's tank.
As the Americans move further into Germany, the horrors of war and the desperation of the Nazi regime are depicted, and there are some pretty grim and gory deaths along the way. Children are used to bolster up the numbers fighting for Germany, while the dead are basically mulch. The reality of conflict is that people die, usually at random and often in horrendous circumstances.
It's not a classic by any stretch, but Fury is very entertaining and, at its heart, is as much about empathy, community and humanity as it is about killing Nazis. That has to be a big positive.
John Byrne
