Fury - B

Rated R, 134 minutes
Wes's Grade: B

WWII film "Fury" a brutal and intense experience

War is never a pretty subject, and if you're looking for a romanticized version of the war, then you won't find it in the stark, well-acted and powerful World War II movie "Fury." Though the story is fictional, the emotion and the brutality are quite realistic, and the battle sequences are superbly handled. The film is set in April, 1945 as the Allies are making their final push in the European Theatre, hardened army Sgt. "Wardaddy" Collier (Brad Pitt) commands a Sherman tank and her five-man crew (Logan Lerman, Michael Pena, Jon Bernthal and Shia LeBouf) on a deadly mission behind enemy lines. Outnumbered and outgunned, Wardaddy and his men face overwhelming odds in their heroic attempts to strike at Nazi Germany. Directed and written by David Ayer ("End of Watch"), the stirring, violent "Fury" shows how blurred the lines can get in war, and though it's slightly overlong, especially in the last act, it's an otherwise memorable tale. The film's intense battle scenes, which are peppered throughout the story, highlight the film, but it's also well-acted from a small set of actors; Pitt grounds the film well as the sympathetic sergeant, though wide-eyed Lerman, as the rookie assigned to a veteran team, and particularly a squirrelly LeBouf, as the Southern Bible-thumping solider, give more realized, memorable turns. "Fury" is not an epic film per se, as the scope limits itself to one section of the larger battle, but it expertly shows the bloody, often troubling realities of what war is and does to the men fighting it, on a slightly smaller scale. Under Ayer's solid direction and script, the film's battle scenes flow quite well, though there are a few scenes (one in particular inside the home of two German women seems to halt the film's energy) that could've been trimmed for the sake of continuity. The sets, costumes, sound and visual effects are all first-rate, and technically the film could be looking at some awards consideration come Oscar-time. The "Butch Cassidy"-style climax can probably be predicted, but even with its flaws, "Fury" is a memorable, entertaining and unsurprisingly, grisly, entry in the war film genre. Definitely worth a look.