Sometimes I feel like I’m supposed to like war movies. The thing is… I really don’t.
Do you ever feel this way? Anytime a film comes out depicting heroism in our military, past or present, it seems like a civic duty to not only see the film, but also to like it. In fact, war movies are some of the only R rated films that many Christians are allowed to support. This is an argument I wish I had the time to deconstruct here, but will probably have to save for another occasion. Suffice it to say, I think that Americans are almost pressured to like war movies, and I think the issue is systemic, because I also think we are pressured to like war itself.
This is certainly true of the characters in Fury. Brad Pitt commands a tank crew toward the end of WWII, and of course, they find themselves all alone and horribly outmatched by their enemy but find the strength within themselves and each other to fight for their dignity, their honor, and their country. I say “of course,” because this film is chock full of war movie clichés. I’ve seen enough of them that I can, with some degree of accuracy, predict in what order and in what manner the protagonists we’re introduced to will die. There are always the ironically predictable “surprise” attacks, and ultimately the final standoff, where certain members of the crew are ready to desert, but one-by-one find the courage to stay together. Cliché’s and tropes are part of any genre, but a movie like this stands out when it manages to break away from the genre and contribute something new.
Fury manages this at a few key points. A key scene in the middle of the film shows how even the “good guys” can inflict terror on innocent people. The movie means to say that war brings the worst out of everyone; even if the film drives home the idea that “war is inevitable.” In a climactic moment near the end of the film, we see one of the “bad guys” showing compassion that saves the life of a “good guy.” At these junctures, the film shows a truly grey area that most war movies oversimplify.
But the film insists that war in inevitable, even if it is horrific. Brad Pitt’s character tells a new recruit, “Ideals are peaceful, but history is violent.” I haven’t fully wrestled with that line of dialogue yet, but I’m certain that I don’t buy into it. I don’t think that war is inevitable, and I don’t think history has to be violent.
So why do we pressure people to like war movies? Why do people have to like war? Why do soldiers have to love their jobs? We feel pressured to see war movies so that we “understand what real war is like,” and then we are slowly convinced to like these films for patriotic reasons. This isn’t unlike the characters in the movie, who are thrown into a war that is truly hell, but over time, through peer pressure, utter one after another: “Best job I ever had.”
One character in the film refuses to kill at first, and over the course of the film begins to enjoy killing the enemy, doing so with pride and disgust. It isn’t enough that they do it because they have to – the war mindset quickly turns from a “necessary evil” to a “justified good.” In a world with far too many soldiers, guns, nuclear bombs and defense budgets, I pray for a world where soldiers never learn to like killing their enemy, even when they’re convinced they must do it. And I pray for a world that can watch movies depicting war without blindly celebrating them.
War is hell. I pray for heaven.
You might also find these reviews of Fury helpful:
Christ and Pop Culture
Christianity Today
Hollywood Jesus
Reel World Theology
Sister Rose at the Movies
Tinsel
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