Butler's Cinema Scene

“Fury” is on one level one of the great war/action films, a face-first plunge into the blood, guts and terror of combat.

But writer/director David Ayer (“Training Day,” “End of Watch”) is aiming for more than just a stomach-churning visit to war’s visceral horrors. He wants to show how combat dehumanizes the individuals who must do the dirty work.

It’s impossible to watch the trailers for “Fury” — with a grimy Brad Pitt in charge of a World War II tank crew — and not be reminded of the Nazi-killing good ol’ boy Pitt portrayed in “Inglourious Basterds.”

That 2009 Quentin Tarantino film was an exaggerated, almost hallucinogenic comic fantasy of warfare. Ayer, though, plays it straight, eschewing overtly comic elements and pushing for an unflinching earnestness.

Only trouble is, he may have pushed too hard.

We are introduced to the five-man crew of Fury, a Sherman tank, on a German battlefield in the spring of 1945, during the last gasps of the war. The tank commander, Sgt. Don “Wardaddy” Collier (Pitt), makes short, silent work of a passing German officer (a knife in the eyeball does the trick nicely). He then climbs back into the tank occupied by three living crewmen and the headless corpse of a fourth.

We’re all accustomed to war movies stocked with various American “types”: a Jew, a Hispanic, a black, a college boy, a redneck. We’re meant to identify with them.

Just try identifying with the creeps who live in Fury. The mechanic Grady  Travis (“Walking Dead’s” Jon  Bernthal) seems more mumbling Neanderthal than modern man. The gunner, Boyd “Bible” Swan (a nearly unrecognizable mustachioed Shia LaBeouf), is intensely religious — he abstains from drink and women but seems to find sexual release in blowing Germans all to hell. The driver, Trini “Gordo” Garcia (Michael Pena), is a bit closer to normal — until you realize that he and Travis are most likely brothers-in-rape.

After years of fighting, whatever civilized veneer these guys had has been stripped away. No longer all-American boys, they are more of a renegade biker gang, killing prisoners and then retreating to their Sherman tank like wolves to their lair.

These characters are borderline cartoonish…only some terrific acting keeps “Fury” from spinning off into pure goofiness.

Into this bubbling stew of anger, hatred, and volatility Ayer adds an innocent, Norman Ellison (Logan Lehrman), a clerk/typist who is expected — without training — to drive a tank and mow down Germans. The kid must learn the hard way to shoot first if he’s going to survive. The question is whether he’ll sacrifice his humanity along the way.

“Fury” takes us through several combat situations, then settles in for a climactic “Alamo” segment in which Wardaddy’s guys and their disabled tank hold a rural crossroads against hundreds of crack German SS troops.

Before that, though, there’s a long and very tense passage set in an apartment occupied by two German girls (Anamaria Marinca, Alicia von Rittberg) who quite sensibly view the newly arrived Yanks as potential murderers and sexual predators. That we’re not sure just what evil these guys — our guys — are capable of makes for some nerve-knotting suspense.

Pitt is terrific as Wardaddy, who in front of his men is a die-hard killing machine (he forces the new kid to execute a quivering German POW) but collapses in convulsive sobs when given a moment alone.

Nearly matching him is Lehrman (“The Perks of Being a Wallflower”), whose reaction to the horrors around him is heartbreaking.

And who would have thought that LaBeouf could go so deep?  Not only does “The Transformers” star seem to have aged a decade, but he captures the agony of a once-moral man who recognizes all too well the beast combat has made of him. Stare into those haunted eyes…if you dare.

Action fans will not be disappointed.  “Fury” is a slam-bam, blood-spattered, convulsively kinetic experience.

But if you ever thought that tank warfare might be cool, this movie will disabuse you of the notion.  The Shermans had far less armor than their German equivalents, and their crews suffered a stratospheric casualty rate matched only by that of submariners. One well-placed shell could turn a tank into an incinerator. (“Fury” provides an all-too graphic example of just such an incident.)

Technically the film is first-rate. Rarely has the mud and blood of warfare been captured with such grim fidelity. Does the sun shine even once in this movie? Or is that overcast sky the perfect metaphor for a world in which conventional morality has been ruthlessly smothered?

| Robert W. Butler