Have societal standards changed so much in a generation? Think about Saving Private Ryan, specifically the scene in which the small band hasn’t got the resources to secure the Nazi POW and has to decide between executing him or letting him go. There’s a serious debate among the remaining company and the movie agrees that although the moral move was made, it probably wasn’t the correct one. In Fury, a POW is executed on the spot. There is no debate. Fury contends that by April of 1945, seasoned soldiers of too much WWII were not interested in debate. The question is simply if Sergeant Wardaddy (Brad Pitt) can get nooby Norman (Logan Lerman) to kill in cold blood.
Have we grown colder as a society? Do we think less of POWs? Is there less room for humanity than there once was? Has U.S. history between Saving Private Ryan and Fury changed how we view war and opponents and evil? Or is Fury merely inferior to Saving Private Ryan? I think a little of everything is the answer. I think the closer we are to the collective paranoia, the colder we get as a people. And there’s little doubt in my mind that yesterday’s Third Reich is today’s ISIS (not that the latter has anything on the former – which is extremely important from an historical perspective).
Yes, Brad Pitt is back for the tail end of WWII. He’s been demoted to sergeant and has thankfully lost the Tennessee accent. And yet, as head of Fury, a tank that has thus far survived German attack after German attack, he’s far more important to the war effort in this film. And he serves as a surrogate father to Norman – Wardaddy’s tank consists of five survivors: He, Norman, the pious Boyd (Shia LaBeouf), the redneck Grady (Jon Bernthal), and hey! a minority in Gordo (Michael Peña). It’s easy to see the parallels between Fury and Saving Private Ryan – a small band of American soldiers including the hardened veteran (Tom Hanks), the green clerk forced into active duty (Jeremy Davies), the pious sharp-shooter (Barry Pepper), all having adventures with Nazis. Again, SPR was a much better film; the soft moments were more poignant and the film began and ended with some of the greatest war footage ever shot.
That said, Fury ain’t bad. There’s a bond among the members of this surviving tank. We’re told the Germans had much better tanks in WWII and it’s not difficult to imagine the few survivors among American tank squads felt not only a team camaraderie, but an outward hostility towards any forced change to the group. Problems would come when Norman is assigned to Fury even if he wasn’t a typist by trade. And when he gets a soldier killed for failure to fire on a German boy, that exacerbates the negativity. So first Wardaddy gives Norman trial by fire, and then he coddles him, allowing the kid a personal respite after a tense battle. This is probably the best set of scenes in the film with Pitt and Lerman taking refuge in the thankfully pristine apartment of two German women. There’s a lot go
ing on here: language barrier, conquered v. conquerors, sexual tension, human nature, hunger, relief to be alive. When the three other tank members show up, the screen is palpable with emotion. How are the Fury vets going to handle the young un’ being shown favorable treatment? In the European Theater, this becomes both downtime and uptime.
I suspect most people are interested in Fury because of the battle scenes. Tanks are sort of a forgotten part of WWII films for obvious reasons: tanks are bullies and highly impersonal. They come in, ground something to a pulp and leave; beating a tank is a monumental victory. Fury did a great job of humanizing tank soldiers, of showing their vulnerability and exploring a, perhaps, mysterious frailty. It did not, however, follow through on realistic battle. The scenes of actual battle, especially the finale, drift in-and-out between “that seems real” and “this is video game, right?” Really? You’re gonna just advance in mass in front of a tank? Um, ok. But it’s not gonna work. Fortunately, these moments were rare.
It’s Brad Pitt’s turn to be Tom Hanks
Locked in a sardine tin fills one with angst
This steel shell
Thinks Deutschland is swell
Do remember to give tanks
Rated R, 134 Minutes
D: David Ayer
W: David Ayer
Genre: Tanks for the memories
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Video gamers
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Nazis, who else?
