Fury

Brad Pitt might be single-handedly bringing back the epic World War II movie, and I rest easier at night knowing he has what it takes to kick some Nazi booty.

Pitt stars as Don Collier – the grittiest and prettiest tank commander in Europe. It’s April 1945, and the Germans are on the run. The Allied forces have made their way into Germany, but this is where the fighting has gotten even uglier as the Nazis do everything they can to stave off defeat.

Collier and his crew just lost a valuable and beloved member of the team, and his replacement is Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman) – a young man who was assigned to be a clerk and a typist, but ended up on the front lines.

Now, this rag tag group needs to lead an overwhelmed, undermanned tank division into the heart of Germany, while facing superior armory and a fighting force willing to do anything to survive.

Writer/director David Ayer doesn’t give us much of a plot, but it isn’t needed as the audience is transfixed with the dramatic, harrowing journey these heroes are taking.

Fury is a classic, epic looking movie with amazing acting and shocking, grisly action. It’s more Saving Private Ryan than Sands Of Iwo Jima.

Ayer immerses us in this world where any sense of peace and tranquility, any feeling of normality, suddenly is blown away by violence and devastation. It keeps the audience on edge and always shocked by how quickly the tone can change at any moment.

Then, he engrosses the audience in the lives and personalities of these rough and tumble characters driven to sickening lengths in a battle between good and evil for life and death. Ayer writes fantastic, easy dialogue that rolls off the actors’ tongues as we learn about each one, what drives him, what makes him afraid and what compels his loyalty in the midst of hell. No speechifying here.

Fury can easily be described as a huge character study as we witness what the horrors of war can do to a man’s soul whether he be the fresh faced Private or the war weary Commander just trying to stay alive to fight another day. Plus, these actors bring the complicated relationships among themselves to life in the most memorable of ways.

Pitt is awesome. He makes Collier into this reluctant, dedicated leader and avoids trying to raise him to mythical stature. At the end of the day, he’s a decent man just trying to do what is right.

Pitt knows when to let Collier put his heart out on his sleeve for the world to see (the big climactic decision is right up there with the best moments in movies this year), and that moment blows you away because he spent the rest of the movie keeping it cool and only trotting out the big emotions when absolutely necessary. In a sense, he keeps hidden what we kind of knew Collier had in him all along because Pitt made us realize it early on and held onto it for the right scene.

Sadly, Lerman is the guy who doesn’t fit in. Time and time again we have seen the New Pretty Boy Of The Moment try to show some acting chops and throw himself into a major league drama like Fury, but, for every Brad Pitt who overcomes that title and matures into a great actor, we have twenty guys like Freddie Prinze Jr. who just fade into obscurity. Lerman feels more like a fader.

While his character is supposed to be a boy among men, the actor never gets beyond that personification. Norman is supposed to become stronger, tougher and more hardened, but I never feel it from Lerman. He is the weak link in a cast of All Stars.

Even Shia LaBeouf shines enough to regain some much needed credibility. Lerman looks like he should go back to movies based on young adult novels, or see if he can swindle a major studio into sanctioning a reboot of Scooby Doo with him taking the role of Fred (Prinze might be willing to lend him the very bad blonde wig).

Even the way Ayer films and shows us the battle scenes is amazing. Just watch the way the artillery streaks across the screen, which heightens the drama.

Fury was one good casting decision away from being an Oscar winner, but it still might be a contender.

Fury is rated R for strong sequences of war violence, some grisly images, and language throughout.