At one point during “Fury,” the World War II drama starring Brad Pitt out Friday, a tank commander’s head is blown off while he’s hunched outside his vehicle during a fiery battle with a combatant. “Fury” writer-director David Ayer insists he didn’t include the surprise decapitation simply to shock moviegoers.
“That was a very common thing that happened,” said Ayer. “There’s countless stories of crews being inside tanks and then all of a sudden their commander’s headless body drops into the tank and sprays blood everywhere. That was the hazard of being a tank commander, and that’s why these guys were so brave.”
Unlike many films about World War II, which have painted a patriotic portrait of the six-year conflict, the R-rated “Fury” instead offers an unapologetically gruesome look at one long day of battle in 1945, just weeks before the Nazis’ final surrender.
