Fury

Director: David Ayer

With: Brad Pitt, Logan Lerman, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Bernthal, Michael Peña

There will never be enough movies about World War II, Nazis, or just war in general. This year alone we had The Book Thief, The Monuments Men and The Wind Rises. And then we have the upcoming Unbroken directed by Angelina Jolie. There are thousand stories and it seems like there will never be enough. David Ayer adds another film in this genre, entitled Fury. Set during the Second World War, the American soldiers make their final push in Germany as Adolf Hitler forces all his men including women and children to fight for the Nazi party. Wardaddy (Brad Pitt) leads a five man crew including a recently enlisted typist Norman (Logan Lerman) as the assistant driver and bow gunner of their tank 'Fury'.

Cinematically, it's everything a man craves in war scenes. But thematically, it's pretty thin especially for a World War 2 movie. It strives to be real and succeeds in its war scenes but sometimes it also fails to be believable in its human interaction parts. It thrives from its terrific tank and gun action scenes that it's easy to ignore the failure in the screenplay department. Nevertheless, it's still heavy as it involves gore, death and other horrible consequences of war. Character wise though it's a bit flat and slight. Not even the charismatic cast could save the narrowness of the story. While everyone delivered okay, they didn't have much of material to show their range as actors albeit the physical requirement of their roles, except for Logan Lerman. But even Lerman's character verged on absurdity in the beginning of the film, where he was hesitant to kill even amidst of the enemies killing his allies.

Not crazy about the ensemble either. Yes, it has Brad Pitt, Logan Lerman, and a serious Shia LaBeouf, but it was Michael Peña who ended up being my favorite in the bunch with his great serving of comic relief in this heavily depressing topic of the film. The differences in these characters make for an interesting group but the story didn't engage me enough to their brotherhood and in the end, it wasn't that affecting as intended to be. I still much prefer George Clooney and his gang as 'The Monuments Men'.