War is hell, so the expression goes, but it’s also emotionally draining, psychologically damaging and full of horror. Netflix’s All Quiet on the Western Front captured this sentiment perfectly for the First World War and David Ayer’s tank epic Fury brings all those themes into the Second World War. For my money, 2014’s Fury is one of the most violent, unsettling and horror-fuel war films, about on the same level as Western Front or the opening of Saving Private Ryan and while this film doesn’t come close to Spielberg’s masterpiece (few films do, to be fair), Fury is still a worthy watch thanks to its fresh take on tank battles, bleak narrative and great (yet frustrating) performances from the talented cast.

Fury takes place during the final weeks of WWII. The Americans have infiltrated Germany and it’s only a matter of time before the Allies win the war. But until that day comes, the fighting carries on, forcing these weary soldiers to keep on pushing despite the obvious outcome. The film title takes its name from the M4 Sherman tank that houses the main characters of the film, chiefly Brad Pitt’s Don “Wardaddy” Collier, Shia LeBoeuf’s Boyd “Bible” Swan, Jon Bernthal’s Grady “Coon-Ass” Travis and Michael Peña’s Trini “Gordo” Garcia. The men have been a unit ever since the North African campaign but find themselves a man short after their gunner “Red” dies in combat, forcing a last-minute replacement. With few men trained in tank combat in this stage of the war, the unit is assigned Logan Lerman’s Norman Ellison, a clerk with no combat experience and an intact moral compass with eight weeks tenure in the military. This naturally creates some tension with the rest of the unit, whose humanity has long since vanished. What follows is a grueling and horrifying trek across Germany that can honestly be exhausting to watch but despite all that, the film is memorable.

Part of what makes the film memorable is the cast of characters. Usually in war films, you have a motley crew of archetypes that allow various personalities to bounce off each other, à la Saving Private Ryan. You can’t say the same for Fury, as the veterans of the tank are generally not very nice people. Sure, each one is unique to the other, but “cruel” and “broken” are the running themes between them all. These guys have been fighting in the tank for years and they’re skilled killers but they’ve also lost just about every shred of humanity. They’re overly macho, and cynical but are fiercely loyal to each other. Jon Bernthal’s character in particular is a vindictive bully who traumatizes young Norman constantly for his lack of combat experience and Brad Pitt’s Wardaddy puts Norman into some highly unethical situations. As such, Fury’s nihilism makes it hard to root for the characters at times, yet despite that, the movie also makes a point to make sure the audience understands why these characters kind of suck. They’re not inherently cruel people but have morphed into these husks during their years of service. So despite not liking the characters, we do end up empathizing with them as a result.

Despite the cast of characters being comprised of unlikeable bullies and jerks, the actors do a fine job portraying the soldiers. Logan Lerman deserves particular praise for his work as the morally pure Norman, a green child relative to the other soldiers in the tank. He does a great job going from a pacifist to a jaded and weary killer, showcasing further loss of humanity. Brad Pitt is also solid as a grizzled veteran who is seemingly aware that his humanity is gone but sees it as a fair price to pay to put a stop to evil, even if he does evil himself. In an attempt to get Norman up to speed on killing, Wardaddy instructs him to kill an unarmed German prisoner and when Norman refuses, Wardaddy puts him in a rear-naked choke and literally forces Norman to pull the trigger with his own hand, taking away Norman’s freewill from preventing him from killing an unarmed prisoner and also committing a war crime in the process (killing an unarmed prisoner). It’s an incredibly stressful scene and moments like this question if we’re supposed to even root for the crew of the Fury. But then you remember that this is WW2 and the enemy have SS members in their ranks.

Jon Bernthal plays the bully so well that I wanted to punch him and leave him in the middle of a field to become someone else’s problem. I hated this guy so much but Bernthal played the part so convincingly. What’s more is that the character, despite his vindictive attitude, is also terrified and Bernthal does a great job at humanizing this hard-to-like character with brief moments of introspection. What’s also interesting is that, given the parameters and context of war, this hazing and bullying type behaviour could be seen as male bonding in its most primal and vile form, showcasing the men egging each other on as they continue to be terrible. Wardaddy often doesn’t stop the bullying but will occasionally draw a line on what’s acceptable, as if to make us want to root for his character amidst the chaos because he has some sort of code. But despite being tough as nails, Wardaddy is clearly suffering from PTSD but believes he can’t showcase his vulnerability in front of his men, lest he appear “weak”. Even Shia LeBoeuf does a solid job as Bible, the least vindictive person in the crew but one who’s clearly hurting yet clinging to his religion. Only Michael Peña’s “Gordo” ends up with the short end of the stick, offering very little to the movie in terms of characterization apart from “drunk, bully and driver”.

Fury ranks as one of the most violent and traumatizing war movies I’ve ever seen and that helps illustrate the horrors of the Second World War, an event that sometimes gets romanticized too much in film. The war was muddy, bloody and full of gore and then the soldiers bottled those emotions deep inside, resulting in cold and detached humans. Is it effective? Yes. Does it make it hard to root for the leads? Also yes. The film is lighter on plot, opting more for a “day in the life of” style approach, with various events stitched together to create a narrative. This may not work for everyone, as there’s no clear goal set apart from “eliminate the enemy”, but it does take Norman on his journey of getting his hands dirty, so to speak.

But these men, save Norman, are skilled at operating their respective stations within the tanks, offering a rather unique cinematic experience. We often see tanks in movies, but rarely are they a character themselves. Fury, the tank, is very much a character, lumbering across the German fields shepherding the troops to their next battle. The camera is right there in the cockpit too, offering a cramped and claustrophobic feeling that only feels worse when Norman is being belittled by his new crew. Yet despite the image of a tank being this indestructible machine, they’re also quite vulnerable and that creates an uneasy sense of dread which is made evident from the opening shot where a German soldier rides on horseback through a graveyard of tanks. What’s more, is that the German tanks are far superior, so when the American tanks face off against a singular German Tiger, it’s a tense nail-biting action sequence that captures the feeling of clawing your way to victory.

The cinematography outside of the tank is also quite well done, with a muted colour pallet adding to the bleak tone and Ayer abandoning the Steadicam technique he used to great effect in End of Watch. The film makes use of tracer rounds, something rarely, if ever, shown on film. But they did exist and the Germans’ use of green ammo while the Americans used red must have been something George Lucas noted when designing Star Wars. It also helps that the film uses World War 2-era tanks in their shots, giving a level of authenticity to the shots and allowing for the interior sets to be replicated with loving attention. The tank battle against the Tiger may not be the most historically accurate (Germans would have attacked the first and then last tank in a column, boxing in the vehicles in the middle), but I’m willing to overlook historical accuracy in the name of an entertaining scene. Likewise, the final shootout does overstay its welcome a bit and I would’ve preferred shortening it down a bit in favour of more character insight. But there’s a slew of historical details sprinkled around the film that more than make up for this, most of it will be invisible to audiences unless they’re familiar with the history too.

David Ayer was also ruthless on his cast in preparation for the role, which likely led to the vindictive nature of the characters. Pre-production on Fury was designed to break the cast and Brad Pitt stated:

“It was set up to break us down, to keep us cold, to keep us exhausted, to make us miserable, to keep us wet, make us eat cold food. And if our stuff wasn’t together, we had to pay for it with physical forfeits. We’re up at five in the morning, we’re doing night watches on the hour.”

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Likewise, the cast trained with SEALs and lived in the tank, including sleeping and crapping in the tank. Jon Bernthal remembered Brad Pitt saying the following: “This is going to start smelling very bad in here very fast” and that Fury was not a fun movie to make. The cast also got into physical and verbal altercations with each other and director David Ayer, on the topic of the grueling pre-production, would go on to say “I am ruthless as a director. I will do whatever I think is necessary to get what I want“. This explains a lot, as the cast look fed up, tired and exhausted. Nowhere is this more evident than during the apartment scene.

An oft-criticized part of the film happens around midway through the film, when Norman and Wardaddy end up having some eggs with two German women. It’s a scene that many critics have cited as being unnecessary, with criticism usually levied at how it breaks the momentum of the film. I must disagree with that assessment, as the scene itself is important and is actually the most tense scene of the whole film, despite the many scenes of warfare. It illustrates the most who the German-speaking Wardaddy is as a character, as he’s very comfortable dining with Germans while also being completely willing to murder unarmed soldiers, showcasing his hatred for the enemy but not the people. But when the rest of the tank crew barge in, we feel as if a fuse has been lit, as the rowdy men have broken Wardaddy’s sanctuary away from the chaos of war. Wardaddy calmly threatens to bash his men’s teeth in if they step out of line with regards to the women, while the men, chiefly Coon-Ass, show extreme resentment to Norman for seemingly getting extra attention via a hot meal and the comfort of a woman. Brad Pitt looks legitimately fed up with Jon Bernthal, as if the lashing out we see was genuine, not scripted and this likely stems from how the actors were housed and treated during the production.

The scene also serves as the catalyst for Norman’s anger, as both women are killed by mortar fire by the end of the sequence, turning him from a doe-eyed typist to a hate-fueled gunner. And that’s basically the jist of this movie, that war is horrific and that the people who fought in it saw some terrible things and did not feel the need to talk about it after the fact. Many WW2 vets are known for being very reserved and this movie highlights those horrors and that no one is truly safe from war. Sure, that’s nothing new, we all know that by now and cinema has certainly shown it before. But few movies make the experience so exhausting as Fury and I mean that as a compliment. It’s also interesting that despite the horrors shown in the film, Fury doesn’t explicitly have an anti-war message like Western Front does, it instead leans more on that the war was necessary and that to fight it, with Wardaddy seeming to relish the opportunity to hunt down members of the SS. It’s also a celebration, in its own way, of the bonds of brotherhood. I don’t think it quite succeeds in the same way as say, Band of Brothers did in that regard and I think the runtime is part of the reason for that as we have less time of quiet introspection for this sentiment to really land.

In the end, Fury was actually a lot better than I remembered. I do think some of the deleted scenes found online could have been included in the final cut as they give much-needed characterization for some of these characters. We don’t get to know these men that well and that’s my main issue with the film. But if you watch it not as a character study and more of a tank film and how war breaks an individual instead, a slice-of-life style film, I think you’ll enjoy this one. Just remember that this is an exhausting and brutal movie but one worth watching nonetheless.