Scene Stealer: Shia LaBeouf In Fury
So Logan Lerman, that kid who starred in Percy Jackson And The Olympians (which I never saw, I’m a bit too old for that book) and The Perks Of Being A Wallflower (which, as a millennial who once identified as a bookish emo kid, I totally saw), did a damn good job carrying Fury with his lead performance, even as a greasy, muscular, heroic Brad Pitt threatened to distract with his beautiful physique. I mean let’s face it, there are some pretty men you can chub up, greasify or give big crooked prosthetic noses to and render them stunningly unappealing (coughcoughJudeLawcoughcough) but Pitt isn’t one of them. Anyway, props to Lerman. He rose from the world of children’s features, made it to the big time and did so with a compelling performance, and that’s commendable.
But you know who did that first? Shia LaBeouf. And with every film I wonder how the hell a little kid from Disney Channel grew into an actor whose performances remind me increasingly of Marlon Brando.
(image source www.pagesix.com)
The media likes to give LaBeouf a hard time, focusing on his penchant for behavior many people wouldn’t consider mainstream. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t read those stories. But they’re problematic in that they really take the focus away from what a talented actor LaBeouf is. Google him right now. How many of the results have anything to do with his career as an actor?
But back to the movie.
For those of you who haven't seen it, it's a story of a young desk jockey (Lerman) shipped off to the front lines just as World War II was reaching its bloody culmination -- and trust me, this movie doesn't skimp on the gore. He's assigned to a tank crew who have been together through a good chunk of the war and have been transformed together by its horrors. They are defined by their loyalty, the tactical acumen with which they approach battle, and by their collective emotional exhaustion. Lerman's character does everything he can to resist becoming a hardened killer, but in the end submits to the realities of war in an act of ultimate loyalty towards his crew and his country. (Don't worry, I won't spoil it).
In the midst of bullets zipping loudly, searing through flesh left and right, or as Brad Pitt teaches an impassioned, jaded lesson to a younger version of himself, or even as a battle-weary and raging soldier takes out his aggression on two German women who are doing their damndest to smile through their fear, when the camera turns on LaBeouf, he steals the scene.
Somehow, in nearly every quiet moment the camera rests on him, the nuanced expression on his face and in his eyes conveys: “I have seen this all before, and it killed me, and now I am watching it kill this boy, and that’s just the way things are, and it’s killing me again.”
What truly makes LaBeouf a scene-stealer in this film is his ability to create stillness, even amid chaos, even alongside other impassioned performances. I could explain what I mean by comparing him to other performers, but instead I think I’ll reference a photograph.
(image source: www.all-that-is-interesting.com/august-landmesser)
A lone dissenter refuses to perform the Nazi salute in Germany in 1936. He could have been lost among the stick-straight right arms of hundreds of Nazi-sympathizers, but when you see the difference in his body language, the simple stillness of his action gives you tunnel vision. To me, that’s the visual, and perhaps even the emotional, effect LaBeouf’s performance created in Fury.
If I have one caveat, it’s that he slightly over-abused his mastery of the single-tear-from-one-eye-without-even-blinking trick. But I’ll give you a pass this time, LaBeouf.