The story is set in the Second World War. The year is 1945 and Allied troops are slowly but surely advancing towards Berlin. Although in disarray, Hitler declared a general war and pushed all men, women and children into the fight. Many German detachments surrendered, but many remained to fight to the last breath. The heroes of the story are members of the crew of Sherman Tank Fury. The captain of the crew is Sergeant Don “Vordedi” Collier (Brad Pitt). Next to him is the sniper Boyd “Swab LaBeouf”, the attendant Grady “Kun-Es” Travis (Jon Bernthal) and the driver Trini “Gordo” Garcia (Michael Peña). After fierce fighting, they lost the fifth member of the crew, and when they arrived at the meeting place with the other troops, they got a replacement in the form of a newcomer who was never in the fight, nor in the tank, Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman). There, they are given a new task to secure a certain route with other tanks to the place where they will meet with other forces, and whether that will be their biggest challenge since the beginning of the war, see for yourself.
The film was directed and written by the well-known David Ayer (Training Day, Kings of the Street, Fast and Dangerous, Sabotage, The Last Guard). Although inexperienced in this genre, my opinion is that he did a great job. Primarily, this is reflected in the way of shooting, where he created a feeling in the viewer to fully get along with the tank crew, ie. you have the impression that you are a crew member yourself. The scenes in the film are cruel, brutal and disturbing, and the director throws it all in our faces, wanting to show all the horrors of war. The grayness, dirt and scenes of destruction create a difficult atmosphere completely appropriate to the action of the film.
The cast is impressive, even in the names themselves, but also in their performance of the roles assigned to them. Brad Pitt played another great role, this time in the role of Sergeant Don, who transformed from a frightened soldier at the beginning of the war into a true leader of his crew. He is ruthless, direct and perfect in what he does, and that is, as he says, killing enemy soldiers. In his character, we see the change of a dangerous sergeant, who built a name in battle and is considered a man who always does his job, on the one hand, and a man who was probably before the war, an educated man who respects human life and protects the weak. on the other side.
Shaya also played a great role, with a completely atypical look for him, and I would also like to praise John Bernhal (known to all of us from Walking Dead) who, in my opinion, played a very demanding role. The weakest link in all this is Michael Peña, who somehow played his role thinly and palely. The biggest surprise, if any, is the promising young actor, Logan Lerman, who simply excelled in the demanding role of a young recruit, who has never seen a rifle or a fight, and through hard fighting we see his character cope with all these horrors and how it slowly but surely transforms into a killing machine.
The music was done by Oscar winner Stephen Price, who won the statue for last year’s Gravity. I don’t know if he will repeat that success, but he did a great job here. The music is entirely in the service of the film and in many ways contributes to the overall perfect atmosphere for a war film. At times, it is creepy and with images of war horrors, it intensifies the overall feeling of painful events. For music from me pure ten.
After watching the film, I read the impressions of various people and I must say that most find objections in the insufficient elaboration of the characters, ie. that it was not said who and what they were before the war. I must say, I do not agree with them at all. My humble opinion is that it was done on purpose. At the beginning, we meet the tank crew, who are called by their war names. We see people who, during the years of war, were completely engrossed in the horrors of war and the death that surrounds them. They are now killing machines and that name is a job, in fact as they say the best job they have ever done. Deprived of any compassion and mercy, they are constantly ready for action and a new task. Their appearance, completely dirty and neglected, does not bother them at all, nor do they notice it, because they are a deadly machine, a weapon that should not look beautiful and clean, but should only kill.
A new member of the crew enters that world, a recruit who is also an ordinary man, a young man full of life, an idealist, a believer, who respects life and people, to whom death and the horrors of war are completely unknown. Thus he enters their world, completely foreign and unattractive, a world he cannot comprehend and which is completely contrary to everything he believes in. As the days go by and the fights change, he is slowly transformed, witnessing the horrors on his own, as if by force from his crew. His transformation is also a very large and important part of the film and everything we see happening to him and what he is going through, we can, although not shown, see that it happened to other crew members. At the very top, he got his war name Machine.
Exactly what I have stated, in my opinion, is one of the main, if not the main goal of the film and the director who made it, and that is exactly what the war does to us with its horrors, from ordinary people who have dealt with ordinary business, went to church, hung out and had fun, turned into killing machines, whose sole purpose is to kill a soldier on the other side. However, in all this, the director shows us that even in all this horror, it is possible to find humanity and keep what makes us human and show mercy.
I think that all those who have experience with tanks and know what one tank can do, especially in a sudden attack, infantry, and one of them myself, would agree with me and say that something like that is quite possible.
In the end, let me add that the film is technically excellent, the effects are excellent, which is especially reflected in the spectacular battles of the tanks. Although the film has a flaw (but one that doesn’t), the overall impression it leaves is strong and represents a very high quality film in the genre it comes from.
