Best Picture Review #9: The Hurt Locker
I see this primarily as a good thing, by the way. Most recent war movies delve too heavily into the "Should we be there?" question, rather than acknowledging that we are there and dealing with the issues at hand. THL wastes no time. One of the bigger name actors in the movie is cast into the role of a soldier that dies in the first 10 minutes. I imagine that some people weren't fazed by this, but it rattled me. From that point on, it seemed that no character was guaranteed to make it to the end of the movie, making the already well-shot and focused bomb-defusing scenes even more tense. There are plenty of memorable scenes, the best one being at the end where the protagonist stands in the grocery store looking at a wall of cereal boxes. How is it possible that this world and the world the rest of the movie is set in are compatible?
I have seen the tight cinematography listed in reviews as the major strength of The Hurt Locker, but to me it is the cat-and-mouse game that is played between the bomb makers and the bomb defusers. Each bomb is more complex than the last, and the interesting thing is the Iraqis will stick around to see whether or not they win. This exploration of the tactical game is rare in war movies.
I think where THL goes awry, though, is when Sgt. James reaches his breaking point. It's hard enough to believe that a three-man explosives team like this exists in the first place, but I was willing to overlook this until James makes his bad decision, and then the whole thing fell apart as unbelievable to me. There is absolutely no way that there is no CO that he reports to. The only consequence of his action was that the affected party cursed at him a little. In the large scheme of things, this inexcusable scene bumps this movie down from an all-time Top 10 war movie to merely an above-average one. It's that big of a deal for me. 4/5
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