Scared Witless, Roy Lichtenstein, 1962
Last week, my brother and I went to see Brad Pitt’s new Oscar vehicle, “Fury”. In this movie Mr. Pitt portrays a grizzled US Army sergeant, nicknamed, ‘War Daddy’. It is set in the last month of World War II European hostilities, April, 1945. He commands an M-4 Sherman tank that is also the movie’s title character, Fury. So, on more than one level, “Fury” really is a Pitt Oscar vehicle. How this movie pairs with the film that his wife, Angelina Jolie, is directing, “Unbroken”, a chronicle of an Olympic runner who is taken prisoner by Japanese forces during World War II, remains to be seen. Her show comes out later this year. The two projects make for an interesting set.
The Sherman houses a five man crew. We see this mostly veteran crew first as caricature WWII stereotypes. There is Shia LaBeouf as Bible, the religious one, Michael Peña as Gordo, the Hispanic and Jon Bernthal as Coon-Ass, the redneck. And then there is the new replacement, Logan Lerman as Norman. The first half of this movie is mostly about Norman trying to fit-in with the rest of this veteran crew. This process culminates in the alleged rape scene.
War Daddy and Norman break-in on two German women in a town that they have just captured after a pitch battle. Bringing gifts of bacon and eggs the two soldiers begin to set up house with their two nervous captives, Emma and Irma. Norm plays the piano and younger Emma in a moment of rapprochement between the sexes, joins him in song. Soon this pair moves to the bedroom for some consensual sex. War Daddy runs interference for the pair and blocks older Irma’s interference with the line, “They’re young.” Norm’s coming of age ritual is consummated. After this somewhat farfetched romantic interlude, the rest of the tank crew crashes the party. They are drunk, loud and offensive and totally destroy the atmosphere that had existed. Fortunately, about the only black soldier in the movie shows up then and announces the call to arms for the final climatic battle.
“Fury” is written and directed by David Ayer, who seems more adept at directing than he is at writing. The initial action sequence seems well written and it obtain a credible sense of realism, while the romantic interlude and the climactic battle both seem farfetched. Production values for this film are sky high. Well researched and impeccably tailored uniforms help make the tank crew, plus the rest of the cast look their parts. Filmed in England, eleven real Sherman tanks played the part of the five tanks portrayed in the movie. The last working German Tiger tank was also used in the movie. As part of the initial action sequence five Sherman tanks face off against the one Tiger and for a movie that is obsessively all about tank combat, this sequence was the best part of the movie for me.
The final climatic battle was set at night, so for the most part it lacked the visuals of the initial sequence. Fundamentally though what sunk the climax was its writing. This final Alamo sequence stretched my sense of incredulity to the breaking point and beyond. Five men, with one tank tread tied behind their backs were able to hold against 300 German SS soldiers.
How was this phantom force conjured in the last few weeks of the war? How was it able to daylight march without Allied airpower molestation and why did they chose to stay and battle Fury and its stranded crew, instead of just bypassing them? It all remain a mystery to me. I nitpick these facts, because the films creators have trumpeted their movie’s realism. A similar argument was made for “Saving Private Ryan”, with the difference being that Spielberg and his team delivered with a credible story.