***1/2 (out of four)
A man appears on the horizon on a horse. He looks commanding, invincible. Riding his beautiful animal, he surveys a smoky battlefield. Suddenly another man jumps off of a tank and attacks the man on the horse, stabbing him in the eye and killing him. The man on the horse was no more indestructible than Don "Wardaddy" Collier (Brad Pitt), the man who killed him. It's a gorgeously shot, horrifying sequence.
The setting is 1945 Germany, and the film is "Fury," the kind of war movie that reinvigorates your interest in war movies. It also shows that writer/director David Ayer ("End of Watch,""Harsh Times") can do better than good. Leading a crew of men (Shia LaBeouf, Michael Pena, Jon Bernthal) in a tank with "fury" written on its barrel, Don learns that his fallen comrade has been replaced by Norman Ellison (Logan Lerman), an introverted kid who's been in the service eight weeks and whose toughest skill is typing 60 words per minute. Clearly, the guy's inexperience is going to get his new colleagues in trouble. Don takes this seriously, and soon an innocence is shattered.
What might have been an ordinary story of a veteran, a newbie and their fellow soldiers of varying eccentricity registers as something deeper and more morally complex. Even at 134 minutes, "Fury" feels tight, present. It lives in the moment while telling a story about a situation that must be embraced or you're dead. The ensemble is exactly right, reflecting camaraderie as well as personality differences that sometimes put them at odds. But there's no forced conversation about where they're from or the first thing they're going to do when they get home. Ayer avoids the cliché and doesn't overwrite. The barrage of bullets feels authentic to the mayhem taking place.
Death is everywhere in "Fury," even places it hasn't yet hit. Don is a leader at all times but hardly a saint or a ridiculous action hero. When the guys declare this is the best job they ever had, it's fair to speculate if that's the only way to cope with the experience.
Maybe the climactic sequence feels a little Hollywood. The characters do feel more like types than real guys. Yet self-control constantly threatens to pop a seam throughout this riveting, intimate epic (which recalls 2009's Israeli "Lebanon"), where in a devastating and matter-of-fact way, tragedy is inevitable, and who you are will never be the same. To steal a phrase from Kacey Musgraves: It is what it is, till it ain't anymore.
Watch Matt review the week's big new movies Fridays at 11:30 a.m. on NBC.
mpais@tribune.com
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