'Fury' Visits Fort Benning

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"Fury" - Fort Benning Georgia Special Screening

Fury director David Ayer and cast members Brad Pitt, Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman and Michael Peña paid a visit to Fort Benning on October 16th to show the film to soldiers stationed there.  It was a beautiful day in Columbus, GA and the Army laid out an impressive tank display.

"Fury" - Fort Benning Georgia Special Screening

They invited a few press along to see the scene and ask a few questions before we all got kicked out so those guys could hang with the military and watch the movie in private.

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Military.com interviews Brad Pit for "Fury."

Fury tells the story of a WWII Sherman tank crew given an impossible mission in the waning days of the European campaign. Director David Ayer (End of Watch) brings his renowned eye for detail to a story about how men bond during wartime.

Brad Pitt gives another one of his Gary Cooper-style performances where he doesn't talk a lot and lets his eyes and body language do most of the work.  He plays Sergeant Don "Wardaddy" Collier. Shia LaBeouf gives his best performance ever as Boyd Swan, a Bible-quoting crew member. Michael Peña's Cpl. Gordo Garcia drives the tank and Logan Lerman plays Norman Ellison, an Army typist assigned to the crew because of a clerical error. Jon Bernthal (PFC Grady Travis) didn't make it to Fort Benning because he's off shooting a new series for HBO created by the folks who made The Wire.

"Fury" - Fort Benning Georgia Special Screening

Brad Pitt is obviously one of the most famous actors in the world and Shia LaBeouf is adored by a lot of soldiers who grew up on Transformers, but Logan Lerman was the cast member who attracted a group of excited young girls, suggesting that those Percy Jackson movies and/or The Perks of Being a Wallflower must be a lot more popular with kids than adults might realize. Shia wasn't interested in talking to the press and spent most of his media time autographing stuff for the men and women in uniform. He makes a brief appearance at the end of the Logan Lerman/Michael Peña video below.

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"Fury" Interview: Logan Lerman and Michael Peña


"Fury" - Fort Benning Georgia Special Screening

As he described in the above video, Michael Peña had a fantastic role as an LAPD officer in Ayer's End of Watch. Fury has that same attention to details: the way the characters have customized the Sherman tank's interior could be the subject of an hour-long documentary when the movie comes out on home video next year. Ayer also talked to us about his eye for detail and how he wants to use that to anchor the very human story he's trying to tell.

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Interview: “Fury” Director David Ayer


Fury is a fine movie. It's unrelenting in its pursuit of realism but it uses that realism to tell the kind of brothers-in-arms story that was Hollywood's stock-in-trade for war movies in the WWII-era and those details give the film a depth those old movies never really had. There's a lot of rough scenes in Fury, but those scenes give the sacrifices the characters make extra weight and clarity. Story Continues