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Saturday, October 12, 2024
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HOLLYWOOD FURY
EDITOR'S PICK
'Fury'
- technically brilliant, but thematically stunted (IANS Movie Review)
Rating:
***1/2
Visualise this -- against the setting sun and in the stillness of twilight,
amidst hordes of lifeless bodies lying around, a lone Nazi soldier on horseback
is inspecting the spoils of the war. Then all of a sudden, the unsuspecting
soldier is attacked and brutally stabbed to death by one lurking in a tanker. It
is this opening shot that defines the tone and mood of this war film.
Written and directed by David Ayer, 'Fury' is a fictional depiction of
the final days of World War 2.
Set in April 1945 in Europe, it is the Allies version of their fight against
Adolf Hitler and Germany. The narration follows Commander Don Collier aka
'Wardaddy' (Brad Pitt) and his band of boys as he penetrates town after town in
his Sherman tanker nicknamed 'Fury'.
Visually, it's one of the most gory war films. Every scene is created to absorb
the atmosphere. While the setting is on a large scale, the narration is
intimate. It solely focuses on the perspective of the five soldiers in this
tank, who are on a deadly mission of killing the Nazis or getting killed.
Apart from being a straightforward war movie, where basic survival is the norm,
the plot hinges on the entire tank crew wanting to mould the latest admission to
the team, into a fighting machine.
As the Allies make their final push into Germany, it is during a maintenance
break that we meet Collier's crew: the superstitious Christian gunner, Boyd Swan
(Shia LaBeouf); the thuggish, hillbilly mechanic, Grady Travis (Jon Bernthal);
and the Hispanic driver Trini Garcia (Michael Pena), who lies somewhere on the
middle of the crew's broad moral spectrum.
When their Sherman tank returns to its operating base, they all meet the newest
member of their crew, Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), a young, innocent and
sensitive recruit who was pulled from a clerical post to become the tank's
assistant driver. His first assignment is to mop up the blood and flesh of the
man whose seat he has just inherited.
Norman's inexperience could easily get his new comrades killed, so Collier --
very much Norman's 'Wardaddy' -- scours the greenness off him very quickly and
ensures that he is as ready to kill the hated 'Krauts' as the next of them.
'Fury' is also the journey Norman travels, spurred on by his
compatriots, and galvanised in the wake of a senseless tragedy. He comes to hate
the enemy, and kills them with extreme prejudice.
Ayer is unflinching in his depiction of Norman's baptism of fire into the
horrors of war, conveying the sudden savagery of ambushes and firefights, as
well as the sweaty claustrophobia of the tank and its desperate vulnerability.
On the performance front, Pitt gives a fine performance as the stoic commander
and so does the rest of the team. But it is Logan Lerman and Shia Labeouf who
outshine all.
Roman Vasyanov's camera work is par-excellence. The visuals, shot in hues of
gray and brown, capture layers of the war grime. His camera work, especially
when the camera tilts from the reflection of the tanker in a puddle to the
tanker itself and the wide surrounding, is worth a mention.
Overall, 'Fury' is technically brilliant, packed with military action
and drama, but as a narrative, it is thematically stunted, riddled with cliches
and oft-seen scenes.
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