Why the movie called "Fury" is my favourite film of the year.
Warning. Spoilers abound. Although this isn't a review.
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Fury tells the story of the final mission of the tank named Fury and its crew. It centers around their leader Don "Wardaddy" Collier (Brad Pitt) and the newest crew member, Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), The remaining crew are named Boyd "Bible" Swan (Shia LaBeouf), Grady "Coon-Ass" Travis (Jon Bernthal) and Trini "Gordo" Garcia (Michael Peña). Norman, a clerk who has never seen war before, joins the battle hardened crew at the beginning of the movie because the previous gunner had died in the prior battle.
There's a lot to talk about the film: its themes, its brutality, its depiction of the unflinching horrors of war. But I'm just going to focus on what, or who the characters were. Because that's where the real story is told. Underneath the bravado and pyrotechnics and violence that covers the film from beginning to the end, is a story of men and who they really are.
Norman is the clean slate and naturally the audience identifies with him the most. It's almost all about his perspective. He comes in green, as a guy who signed up to type letters but gets sent to battle having never shot a gun or killed a person. Through the course of the movie, Norman is changed by the things he sees and the things he has to endure.
Boyd, Grady and Trini are bitter and scarred by the war. They trust in Don because they know he's the best man to get them through the war. Grady is antagonistic and a brute most of time, but he shows his inner vulnerability close to end when he tells Norman that everyone thinks he's a good person while the rest of them are not. Trini's the guy who's fairly neutral, the "support" guy. He does his job and is more than willing to partake in the ugliness of war.
Boyd however, is a little more complicated. Deeply religious, he spouts verses, takes the time to give dying soldiers their last rites, has a fairly firm view on the faith he proudly professes (thus the war-name). Despite that, he's shown that the war has bitten deep into his soul - he demonizes the Nazis and revels in killing them, and at perhaps the most tense moment of the film, subtly suggests that they could do whatever they want with the German women whose house they had entered.
That just leaves Don. We don't quite see who he is at the beginning of the movie. He appears to be a remorseless killer, ready to kill any Nazi (particularly the SS), who cares for his men so that they'll be a complete fighting unit. It appears all very Hollywood.
But then, we are showed the cracks. The first time you see it, they've reached safe ground and are carrying out the crew member who died. Don walks away from his crew on the pretext of getting official stuff done, but he stops and shudders. It's pained him, but he refuses to let his feelings be shown in front of the others. The next time it happens is after he's forced Norman to kill the German prisoner. Don walks away and grimaces. He's been forced by circumstances to stain Norman's soul.
You get other hints of who he actually is. When Fury takes part in the conquering of a town and manages to take out an anti-tank gun before it could kill them, the German soldiers caught in the blast come out burning to death. Norman, both in rage against his peers and in pity of the dying men, shoots them dead while the rest of the crew comment that he should have let them burn to death. Don on the other hand, makes no such comment but instead praises Norman for shooting them. It appears that he does so because Norman finally is doing his job, but it also becomes apparent (from the rest of his actions during the film), that Don, while having no compunctions to kill, does not enjoy it.
Then the house incident occurs and you begin to realise - Don is a principled man. Once you catch that Don's fury is against the horror that is war and against the sickness that is the fanaticism of the Nazis, the things he says begin to make sense. That's why he sees the bigger picture. That's why he does what he has to.
I'm not doing the movie justice thus far, but bear with me. After that, the Fury manages to defeat a much more superior tank - one that had just destroyed the other 2 tanks with them. The crew is in a high - Boyd states that God hasn't called them home yet, and then says one of the movie's quotes: "Best job I ever had.". The others echo his sentiment, except for Don.
When faced with the knowledge that the Nazi troops they were sent to stop were coming before they could fix their immobilized tank, Don chooses to stay. The rest of the crew want to leave and he tells them to go. This is entirely uncharacteristic as for the first time he does not boss them around but almost happily allows them to leave. In part, this is because he wants to keep that promise of keeping them alive. However, he can't leave - Don knows what was at stake (they were the only ones left to intercept an army column that would hit the Allies supply line). Norman joins him, and the rest follow suit, knowing that they were committing to their own deaths.
This is when the turning point in the movie happens. The crew sit in the tank awaiting the enemy and Boyd shares a verse that he says has been something he has kept with him all this while. The verse is:
"Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
While the others ponder the verse in their own way, each contemplating what is to come, Don breaks the silence by naming the book and chapter of the verse (its Isaiah 6:8 btw).
Boyd is entirely stunned. He can't believe (as probably most of the audience as well) that his CO, the man who appeared entirely amoral and un-religiousness, could recognise the verse he had just quoted.
You see, this is the point. Don is a Christian. He doesn't wear it on his sleeve as Boyd does, but he lives by the principles of it. He makes hard decisions, and some of them morally grey, but his guiding light has always been to do what he needs to to keep the men under his care safe and to help end the war. He's not perfect of course. Perhaps he knew he was losing his way, and perhaps he was awakened to it when Norman joined the crew, but in the end he chooses what he knows to be the right thing to do. And then says "Best job I ever had".
Two last points. During the fight, Don gets shot and needs to be patched by Boyd. Now, I may have heard this wrong, but I was quite sure that Don (and not Boyd) was the one who suddenly quotes this next verse:
"For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever." (1 John 2:16-17)
At this moment, there is a sudden realization on Boyd's face. He suddenly sees the same thing that Don does - that they were meant to survive this far because they needed to do this - stop the German troops at those crossroads. Its as if a sudden clarity came on him. Everything else mattered less, God had called, and they were here to answer.
I think it takes a knowledge of a few things to truly grasp this. Some of it is pragmatic - like the big picture of a war. However, some of these things only come when you've spent some time considering if God is real, and if He is, about what he says in the Bible, and how all that translates into living life.
Life is really full of greys. As we live life on earth we don't seem to be able to connect the dots all the time. We sometimes demonize things we should not. We pretend we are people whom we aren't. Like Grady, we sometimes recognize when something actually is good and treat it flippantly or with disdain because we are afraid to look within ourselves and see how bad we actually are. Like Boyd we try to live right, but sometimes the bad in us gets the better of us. Like Trini, sometimes we just don't care.
But like Don, sometimes we do care and we just wonder why we are who we are and why we've done what we've done. Sometimes the choices are hard and they don't make sense. Sometimes we can't see the big picture.
Perhaps, even at the end of the day, we are unsure. When Norman tells Don he's afraid, Don replies that he's afraid too. Now, Don's already been fatally wounded by a sniper. Its not a stretch to say he was saying he was afraid of dying. But if the above holds true, then perhaps he wasn't as much afraid of dying, as he was of meeting God after it was over. What would God say of the choices he's made? Was he saved? Or has he condemned himself?
These are all things we struggle with. The thoughts and motivations of our heart. The wars we fight within our mind, struggling between good and evil. The characters in Fury are not real, but perhaps they echo our very own voices. This is the human condition.
Our circumstances, fortunately (or not), are nowhere as dire or deadly as the crew of the Fury's. But there is still a war being waged, one for our souls and the souls of those around us. What choices do we make? Have we let ourselves become bitter by the daily grind of this mortal world? Do we still make the right choices when faced with a way out? Have we said "here I am, send me" to the call on our lives? These are all such difficult questions and yet such pertinent ones. Will we, at the crossroads, choose right?
We all must choose. The movie is merely that, a movie. It doesn't offer answers. But perhaps it offers us a glimpse of how we can respond right.
And that is why Fury is my favorite film of the year.
.
.
.
Fury tells the story of the final mission of the tank named Fury and its crew. It centers around their leader Don "Wardaddy" Collier (Brad Pitt) and the newest crew member, Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), The remaining crew are named Boyd "Bible" Swan (Shia LaBeouf), Grady "Coon-Ass" Travis (Jon Bernthal) and Trini "Gordo" Garcia (Michael Peña). Norman, a clerk who has never seen war before, joins the battle hardened crew at the beginning of the movie because the previous gunner had died in the prior battle.
There's a lot to talk about the film: its themes, its brutality, its depiction of the unflinching horrors of war. But I'm just going to focus on what, or who the characters were. Because that's where the real story is told. Underneath the bravado and pyrotechnics and violence that covers the film from beginning to the end, is a story of men and who they really are.
Norman is the clean slate and naturally the audience identifies with him the most. It's almost all about his perspective. He comes in green, as a guy who signed up to type letters but gets sent to battle having never shot a gun or killed a person. Through the course of the movie, Norman is changed by the things he sees and the things he has to endure.
Boyd, Grady and Trini are bitter and scarred by the war. They trust in Don because they know he's the best man to get them through the war. Grady is antagonistic and a brute most of time, but he shows his inner vulnerability close to end when he tells Norman that everyone thinks he's a good person while the rest of them are not. Trini's the guy who's fairly neutral, the "support" guy. He does his job and is more than willing to partake in the ugliness of war.
Boyd however, is a little more complicated. Deeply religious, he spouts verses, takes the time to give dying soldiers their last rites, has a fairly firm view on the faith he proudly professes (thus the war-name). Despite that, he's shown that the war has bitten deep into his soul - he demonizes the Nazis and revels in killing them, and at perhaps the most tense moment of the film, subtly suggests that they could do whatever they want with the German women whose house they had entered.
That just leaves Don. We don't quite see who he is at the beginning of the movie. He appears to be a remorseless killer, ready to kill any Nazi (particularly the SS), who cares for his men so that they'll be a complete fighting unit. It appears all very Hollywood.
But then, we are showed the cracks. The first time you see it, they've reached safe ground and are carrying out the crew member who died. Don walks away from his crew on the pretext of getting official stuff done, but he stops and shudders. It's pained him, but he refuses to let his feelings be shown in front of the others. The next time it happens is after he's forced Norman to kill the German prisoner. Don walks away and grimaces. He's been forced by circumstances to stain Norman's soul.
You get other hints of who he actually is. When Fury takes part in the conquering of a town and manages to take out an anti-tank gun before it could kill them, the German soldiers caught in the blast come out burning to death. Norman, both in rage against his peers and in pity of the dying men, shoots them dead while the rest of the crew comment that he should have let them burn to death. Don on the other hand, makes no such comment but instead praises Norman for shooting them. It appears that he does so because Norman finally is doing his job, but it also becomes apparent (from the rest of his actions during the film), that Don, while having no compunctions to kill, does not enjoy it.
Then the house incident occurs and you begin to realise - Don is a principled man. Once you catch that Don's fury is against the horror that is war and against the sickness that is the fanaticism of the Nazis, the things he says begin to make sense. That's why he sees the bigger picture. That's why he does what he has to.
I'm not doing the movie justice thus far, but bear with me. After that, the Fury manages to defeat a much more superior tank - one that had just destroyed the other 2 tanks with them. The crew is in a high - Boyd states that God hasn't called them home yet, and then says one of the movie's quotes: "Best job I ever had.". The others echo his sentiment, except for Don.
When faced with the knowledge that the Nazi troops they were sent to stop were coming before they could fix their immobilized tank, Don chooses to stay. The rest of the crew want to leave and he tells them to go. This is entirely uncharacteristic as for the first time he does not boss them around but almost happily allows them to leave. In part, this is because he wants to keep that promise of keeping them alive. However, he can't leave - Don knows what was at stake (they were the only ones left to intercept an army column that would hit the Allies supply line). Norman joins him, and the rest follow suit, knowing that they were committing to their own deaths.
This is when the turning point in the movie happens. The crew sit in the tank awaiting the enemy and Boyd shares a verse that he says has been something he has kept with him all this while. The verse is:
"Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”
And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
While the others ponder the verse in their own way, each contemplating what is to come, Don breaks the silence by naming the book and chapter of the verse (its Isaiah 6:8 btw).
Boyd is entirely stunned. He can't believe (as probably most of the audience as well) that his CO, the man who appeared entirely amoral and un-religiousness, could recognise the verse he had just quoted.
You see, this is the point. Don is a Christian. He doesn't wear it on his sleeve as Boyd does, but he lives by the principles of it. He makes hard decisions, and some of them morally grey, but his guiding light has always been to do what he needs to to keep the men under his care safe and to help end the war. He's not perfect of course. Perhaps he knew he was losing his way, and perhaps he was awakened to it when Norman joined the crew, but in the end he chooses what he knows to be the right thing to do. And then says "Best job I ever had".
Two last points. During the fight, Don gets shot and needs to be patched by Boyd. Now, I may have heard this wrong, but I was quite sure that Don (and not Boyd) was the one who suddenly quotes this next verse:
"For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever." (1 John 2:16-17)
At this moment, there is a sudden realization on Boyd's face. He suddenly sees the same thing that Don does - that they were meant to survive this far because they needed to do this - stop the German troops at those crossroads. Its as if a sudden clarity came on him. Everything else mattered less, God had called, and they were here to answer.
I think it takes a knowledge of a few things to truly grasp this. Some of it is pragmatic - like the big picture of a war. However, some of these things only come when you've spent some time considering if God is real, and if He is, about what he says in the Bible, and how all that translates into living life.
Life is really full of greys. As we live life on earth we don't seem to be able to connect the dots all the time. We sometimes demonize things we should not. We pretend we are people whom we aren't. Like Grady, we sometimes recognize when something actually is good and treat it flippantly or with disdain because we are afraid to look within ourselves and see how bad we actually are. Like Boyd we try to live right, but sometimes the bad in us gets the better of us. Like Trini, sometimes we just don't care.
But like Don, sometimes we do care and we just wonder why we are who we are and why we've done what we've done. Sometimes the choices are hard and they don't make sense. Sometimes we can't see the big picture.
Perhaps, even at the end of the day, we are unsure. When Norman tells Don he's afraid, Don replies that he's afraid too. Now, Don's already been fatally wounded by a sniper. Its not a stretch to say he was saying he was afraid of dying. But if the above holds true, then perhaps he wasn't as much afraid of dying, as he was of meeting God after it was over. What would God say of the choices he's made? Was he saved? Or has he condemned himself?
These are all things we struggle with. The thoughts and motivations of our heart. The wars we fight within our mind, struggling between good and evil. The characters in Fury are not real, but perhaps they echo our very own voices. This is the human condition.
Our circumstances, fortunately (or not), are nowhere as dire or deadly as the crew of the Fury's. But there is still a war being waged, one for our souls and the souls of those around us. What choices do we make? Have we let ourselves become bitter by the daily grind of this mortal world? Do we still make the right choices when faced with a way out? Have we said "here I am, send me" to the call on our lives? These are all such difficult questions and yet such pertinent ones. Will we, at the crossroads, choose right?
We all must choose. The movie is merely that, a movie. It doesn't offer answers. But perhaps it offers us a glimpse of how we can respond right.
And that is why Fury is my favorite film of the year.
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