Writer/director David Ayer has spent his career writing about what happens in the space between men at times of enormous stress, and he's got a really brutal, nasty overall sensibility. He broke through with his scripts for "The Fast & The Furious" and "Training Day," and then made the jump to directing as well with "Harsh Times," starring Christian Bale.
Any first-time director who manages to someone as difficult as Bale and survives deserves some respect, and Ayer strikes me as someone who is struggling to make serious but entertaining films that explore these certain themes in certain ways, mixing up where and when they take place, but essentially circling the same ideas repeatedly. His new film, "Fury," feels like a bid for respectability, a hope that he might be headed back into awards season. I'm not someone who writes about awards, so I have no idea how it'll do, but as a simple piece of storytelling, it's pretty well-made, and occasionally, I think it even gets great.