new to DVD: Fury

There's a scene somewhere around the mid-point of Saving Private Ryan in which the story's heroes, notably including the usually calm and decent army captain played by Tom Hanks, let their anger get the better of them, and they decide to break the rules of war by killing an unarmed German soldier who has already surrendered and is now begging for mercy. The only person with a strong objection to this plan (other than the German soldier, of course) is the naive young rookie soldier who hasn't seen any combat yet. Effectively, poignantly, and powerfully, the scene illustrates how the horrors of war can motivate even good men to do terrible things even when unnecessary.

Fury, a more recent action drama about a small group of World War II soldiers, features a nearly identical scene, but in this case, it's much closer to the beginning of the film. The filmmakers of Saving Private Ryan wanted to make sure that you grow to care for and identify with the film's heroes so much that, by the time you get to the "let's kill 'im!" scene, your horror is more than balanced by at least an understanding of what has led Hanks and the others to this psychological point. By contrast, Fury director/ writer David Ayer would rather challenge his viewers right off the bat; his "kill 'im" scene occurs so early that we barely know the soldiers who are committing this heinous act. Where should our sympathies lie? With the American soldiers who are breaking the law and victimizing the unarmed man? Both our sense of nationalism and our knowledge that these men will be the heroes of the story seem to indicate that they are the ones we should sympathize with, but Ayer is, intentionally, not making it easy for us. He even stacks the moral cards against the "heroes" yet further by having the leader force the naive young soldier do the killing, against the poor young man's horrified, strenuous objections.

The story begins mere seconds after the sudden end of a brutal, harrowing (and unseen by the audience) skirmish in 1945 Germany -- a skirmish whose casualties include Red, the assistant driver of the Sherman tank "Fury." The rest of Fury's crew are left irritable, shaky, and in a borderline panic. They return to an Allied camp, but after only a few minutes' rest, they are immediately handed a new mission, and a new assistant driver. Their new driver, Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), is innocent, naive, young, fresh out of training, and wholly unqualified for the position; he's got no training in tanks at all, and his only previous position in the Army was as a clerk.

Fury sets off on its next mission, and we get to know the rest of the crew: There's bible-thumping Boyd "Bible" Swann (Shia LaBeouf), Mexican-American Trini "Gordo" Garcia (Michael Pena), redneck bully Grady "Coon-Ass" Travis (Jon Bernthal), and the leader of the crew, Sergeant Don "Wardaddy" Collier (Brad Pitt).

You can't fault the performances, or David Ayer's direction, but, doubling as the movie's scriptwriter, Ayer does paint himself into a corner when it comes to the depiction of the characters: Because you know that these are the heroes of the story, you find yourself really wanting to like these characters, no matter how many times they challenge that desire. Yet some of them are so defined by simple characteristics that Ayer's dilemma is that the movie gets to a point where any change in character would no longer come across as natural character development, so much as jarring inconsistency. Take Grady, for example. I referred to his character as a "redneck bully," and for much of the film, Ayer takes this concept of the character to such an extreme, that you start to view Grady as an all-out villain. Then, when he eventually says something heart-felt and sensitive, it doesn't feel like, "ah, another side to the man!" Instead, it just feels like, "this guy would never say that!"

Another example is the rookie solider, Norman. He is repeatedly both depicted and explicitly described as gentle and idealistic. These are excellent qualities in a civilian, but not in a soldier, and while his personality is endearing, we also want to see him develop some courage and become a better soldier. Yet eventually, when he is given the chance to do this, it's really a no-win situation for both Ayer as a writer and us as viewers: If Norman does "man up" it comes across as unrealistic, if he doesn't, he comes across as a coward.

The movie constantly invites comparisons to Saving Private Ryan. I've already noted the remarkable similarities in both one specific scene and character dynamic (a small group of war-weary soldiers suddenly having to deal with a rookie soldier in their midst), but it's much more than that. From the visually frank and graphic carnage of the battles and their aftermath, to the cinematography, which is identical to Spielberg's film (the same muted color scheme that makes even bright sunny days somehow seem cloudy), Fury almost seems less like an independent entity, and more like an intentional companion piece to Private Ryan.

Many people, myself included, consider Saving Private Ryan to be a masterpiece, and, held up to that particular bar, Fury does fall short. But if you can get past the comparison -- and it is a challenge, no two ways about that -- Fury does have a lot to offer. Yes, I've noted some drawbacks to Ayer's character development, but when it comes to scene work, some sequences of Fury are just pure gold. Legendary director / writer Howard Hawks once said "a good movie is three good scenes, and no bad ones." By that standard, at least, Fury is an excellent movie.