Two stars. Rated R, for profanity and relentless battlefield violence and gore
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.17.14
Classic World War II movies,
absent the cynicism and despair that later infected so many big-screen
depictions of the Vietnam quagmire, laced their stories with honor, chivalry,
moral fortitude and an absolute respect for the chain of command.
The Nazi enemy may have behaved
like vicious, amoral swine, but our stalwart boys worked together with courage
and righteousness, guided by the innovative strategies of battlefield stalwarts
whose ingenuity helped trump sometimes superior forces.
This classic archetype continued
for decades thereafter, building to modern classics such as Steven Spielberg’s Saving
Private Ryan and HBO’s lavish miniseries, Band of Brothers, both of which
gained their power from a rich tapestry of characters about whom we cared very,
very deeply.
It would appear that this cinematic
model has fallen out of favor.
Writer/director David Ayer’s Fury presents the latter days of the European campaign as the equivalent of
an inner-city street fight between drug gangs, with the grunts on our side no
better than the animals wearing the Nazi cross. The so-called “good guys” in
this unpalatable story seem modeled on the thugs who tortured and humiliated
Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib; early on, in fact, we’re granted a sequence of
American GIs behaving just that badly with a captured German soldier.
It’s interesting — carrying this
observation even further — that this story’s sole act of genuine kindness, of
benevolent altruism, is offered by one of those aforementioned Nazi monsters.
We could call it dramatic irony, but I’m not willing to give Ayer that much
credit.
Three of the five primary
characters in this film are one-dimensional brutes granted only a hiccup of
actual characterization: superficial affectations implied solely by nicknames
such as Gordo, Bible and Coon-Ass.
(Just in passing, I’d love to declare
a moratorium on movies with characters who never seem to have real names, but
instead are granted stupid monikers better suited to comic book villains. It
has become a tiresome and frankly irritating cliché.)
Our other two protagonists, while
graced with a bit more presence and personality, aren’t that much more likable
... but we eventually bond with them, to a degree, solely because we’ve gotta
care about somebody in this mean-spirited mess.
And “mean-spirited” is this
film’s prevailing tone: no surprise, since Ayer is the enraged scripter of
nihilistic cop dramas such as Training Day and End of Watch, and earlier
this year wrote and directed the offensively deplorable Arnold Schwarzenegger
vehicle, Sabotage. Ayer clearly doesn’t think much of his fellow man, and a
little of that contemptuous vitriol goes a long way.
Given this new film’s 134-minute
length, that’s a very long way.
All that aside, Ayer isn’t
entirely ignorant in the ways of engaging storytelling, choosing to present the
timeless theme of innocence lost: a sure-fire heartbreaker that, yes, works its
magic, even here. If only fitfully.
“Ideals are for peacetime,” our overwhelmed
young rookie is told. “History is violent.”
The setting is April 1945, as the
war-weary Allies make their final push across Germany, engaging fanatical Nazi
platoons stubbornly clinging to the illusion that they still could win. The
story’s titular character, a Sherman tank dubbed Fury, is commanded by Don
Collier (Brad Pitt), a battle-hardened army sergeant dubbed Wardaddy. He and
his men — Boyd “Bible” Swan (Shia LaBeouf), Trini “Gordo” Garcia (Michael Peña)
and Grady “Coon-Ass” Travis (Jon Bernthal) — roll into an Allied camp after
having just lost their fifth man, with whom they have shared campaigns since
the war began.
That fellow’s replacement turns
out to be Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), a recent recruit trained to be a clerk
typist, who — for reasons unspecified — has been sent to the front lines of the
Second Armored Division, to become Wardaddy’s new assistant driver/gunner.
Wardaddy doesn’t want him, which
comes as no surprise: one of the few genuinely intelligent responses on display
here. A kid never even taught to shoot isn’t likely to be an asset in a tank
under fire. But, thanks to the application of some tough love — I don’t know
what else to call it — Norman quickly finds himself seated alongside Gordo,
nervously watching the bushes as Fury rolls out on another mission.
What follows — the entire film —
takes place in a mere 24 hours. And, I must say, it’s amazing how quickly
Norman morphs into a hardened killing machine who also seems to know the tank
inside and out. That’s Hollywood, I guess.
Norman’s initial battlefield
“blooding” is fast, furious and quickly concluded: a prologue that segues to a
curious interlude in a rescued German hamlet. By this time, Wardaddy has
developed a paternal sympathy for Norman; the two of them come across two
frightened German women — Irma (Anamaria Marinca) and the younger, more
voluptuous Emma (Alicia von Rittberg) — who gradually relax in their presence.
But then Bible, Gordo and
Coon-Ass crash the party, and what follows is a bizarre dinner sequence
apparently modeled on the Mad Hatter’s tea party from “Alice in Wonderland.”
Watching — nay, enduring — this clumsy sidebar, with its ludicrous dialogue and
bewildering behavior, I couldn’t help thinking how much better, and sharper,
somebody like Quentin Tarantino could have concocted the scenario.
Instead, Ayer wastes our time,
and embarrasses his cast, with raised-eyebrow, long-suffering-sigh nonsense.
No matter, because it’s just a
pause before the main event, when circumstances will force Fury and her men to
hold their ground — all by themselves, at a key crossroads — against (class,
all together now!) overwhelming odds.
Giving the devil his due, Ayer
does know how to stage a melee; this final battle is damn impressive. The
verisimilitude, as well, is strong throughout the entire film; Ayer,
cinematographer Roman Vasyanov and production designer Andrew Menzies persuasively
convey a sense of the wearying, mud-wallowing slog that characterized the final
months of the European campaign.
So, yes; this film looks, feels
and sounds authentic. Too bad it couldn’t be populated by at least a few
kinder, gentler characters. Or characters of any kind, for that matter.
Pitt is stoic, aloof and grimly
amused: a hardened veteran trying to salvage the remnants of his humanity, and
not succeeding too well. Wardaddy particularly loathes German SS officers, and
goes berserk in their presence; we’ve no idea why. He’s practical and pragmatic,
and thus far has (mostly) held his unit together ... characteristics we get
more because somebody tells us, as opposed to Pitt conveying them via his
performance.
It’s not Pitt’s fault; he has
presence to burn, and it’s not hard to see soldiers willingly placing their
lives in such a man’s hands. But not even Pitt can make a silk purse out of
this sow’s ear of a script, and if he looks confused during the aforementioned
dinner sequence, as if uncertain what to do next ... well, that’s the fault of Ayer’s
script.
Lerman’s Norman is this story’s
saving grace. He imbues the frightened Norman with the clueless vulnerability
that served him so well in 2012’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and the
result is our immediate emotional involvement. Even as Norman succumbs to
battlefield lust, Lerman keeps the kid sympathetic and virtuous, and he remains
our only reason to care about what happens next.
LaBeouf’s Boyd is
incomprehensible: a stone-cold killer who nonetheless quotes the Bible, and
apparently sees himself as God’s Grim Reaper. Between LaBeouf’s weirdly erratic
performance and the character’s lack of texture, it’s impossible to get a bead
on this guy; when Boyd tears up, as he does frequently, it just seems stupid.
Bernthal’s Coon-Ass is a mindless
thug with about as much personality as a faux TV wrestler. Peña’s Gordo is even
worse: little more than the gang’s token Latino.
Jason Isaacs, in his few brief
scenes as Capt. Waggoner, delivers a level of convincing acting gravitas mostly
absent from the rest of the film. It’s a shame we couldn’t spend more time with
him.
Granted, war is hell, and this
film certainly conveys as much; the R rating is well earned for gory
battlefield carnage. But if Ayer also intends to suggest that ground-level
American soldiers are sadistic, undisciplined, soulless monsters with no
respect for themselves, for chain of command, or anything else — during World
War II, in Vietnam, Iraq or anywhere else — I don’t buy it.
Or, let’s put it this way: Fury is too clumsy to make that case. In the great panoply of one-against-many war
dramas — and Ayer’s final shot clearly evokes the climactic camera pull-back
that concludes 1964’s Zulu — Fury is no more than a mean-spirited,
thumb-in-the-eye betrayal of heroism, idealism and every other virtuous human
quality that comes to mind.
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