Fury

The most notable thing about David Ayer’s 2014 film is that the Tiger on screen is real. Tiger 131 from The Tank Museum at Bovington is the only running Tiger I in the world, and the museum lent it for about two weeks under an agreement specifying its permitted starts, stops, gear changes and track mileage. The production hired a recovery vehicle in case it failed. The last time a genuine Tiger I appeared in a film was 1950. What that buys is a duel staged as slow positional chess rather than a chase. The second thing sits mid-film. The long stretch in the apartment with the two German women is not an action scene, and it is where the film settles its moral position. The table, not the combat, shows you what kind of group this crew is, and anyone expecting continuous fighting stalls right here. Ayer put the cast through four months of preparation including a week-long camp run by Navy SEALs, had them live inside the tank together and spar with each other, and calls himself ruthless enough to do whatever he thinks necessary. Not for you if you expect the rigour of the hardware to extend to the plot. The last act is a constructed last stand, not a documented event.