Damon Smith sees Brad Pitt star as a battle-weary tank commander amid the violence

At a critical juncture in David Ayer’s wartime thriller, Brad Pitt’s grizzled tank comman-der turns to an inexperienced new recruit and sounds the death knell on morality and diplomacy in a time of conflict.

“Ideals are peaceful, history’s violent,” he growls with an icy glare.

Those words resonate throughout Fury, a brutal, mud-spattered tour of duty during the final weeks of the Second World War, as seen through the gun sights of an M4 Sherman tank crew on a collision course with Hitler’s troops.

The film opens with Pitt’s inspirational leader stabbing an unsuspecting German officer in the eye and Ayer repeatedly sates a thirst for close-up gore with expertly choreographed battle sequences and hand-to-hand combat between ground troops.

The bloodbath temporarily abates for brotherly banter inside the claustrophobic tank, but the air is always chokingly thick with impending doom.

Eight weeks after he enrolls in the US Army as a clerk typist, Norman Ellison (Lerman) is assigned the position of assistant driver in a tank christened Fury under the command of Sergeant Don ‘Wardaddy’ Collier (Pitt). This battle-weary veteran began the war in Africa and moved to Europe, killing numerous Germans along the way in the name of freedom.

Aided by the rest of his crew, Collier gives Norman an initiation he will never forget on a ser-ies of missions led by Captain Waggoner and Lieu-ten-ant Par-ker. Three other tanks comm-anded by Sergeant Binkowski, Sergeant Davis and Sergeant Peterson flank Fury as US soldiers push on towards Berlin. “It will end soon,” Collier assures Norman, “but before it does, a lot more people gotta die.”

Fury paints a familiar picture of the hell of war, directed with testosterone-fuelled swagger by Ayer.

His script is studded with dialogue that doesn’t quite ring true, like when Collier berates thuggish Grady, “You’re an animal. All you understand is fist and boot”.

Pitt leads the cast with a strong performance as a battle-weary commander, who holds back a tide of anguish and uncertainty until he is alone and can allow the sobs to shake his scarred body. Lerman is equally compelling as a naive whelp, who develops a taste for killing Nazis. Ayer obliges him with an astronomical body count and foreign fields slathered as far as the eye can see in mud, freshly spilt blood and the bodies of the fallen.

Fury (15)   
Directed by David Ayer
Starring Brad Pitt, Logan Lerman, Shia LaBeouf, Michael Pena, Jon Bernthal, Jim Parrack, Brad William Henke, Kevin Vance, Xavier Samuel, Jason Isaacs, Anamaria Marinca, Alicia von Rittberg