Posted on 07/10/2009 5:21:42 PM PDT by smokingfrog
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break, Strange Days), the Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker is a full-throttle body shock of a movie. It gets inside you like a virus, puts your nerves in a blender, and twists your guts into a Gordian knot. Set during the last month in the year-long rotation of a three-man U.S. Army bomb squad stationed in Baghdad, it may be the only film made about Iraq that gives us a true sense of what it feels like to be on the front lines. It’s an experiential war movie, but also a psychologically astute one, matching its intricate sensory architecture with an equally detailed map of the modern soldier’s psyche. The Hurt Locker belongs to that subset of Bigelow’s work devoted to the ethos of hyper-masculine communities and the men who emerge as their leaders. Staff Sergeant William James (the brilliant Jeremy Renner) is one such character—a secular god with a penchant for reckless bravado who inspires equal amounts of envy and contempt in the men under his command. Some have heralded Bigelow’s film as an “apolitical” war movie, which is really a way of saying that it arrives mercifully free of ham-fisted polemics. Instead of setting out to prove a point, it seeks to immerse us in an environment—something Bigelow does as well as any director at work today.
Anybody know anything about this movie?
I like Bigelow’s work, it often portrays the vapid, smiling faces and postures evil employs to lure the good to destruction - and how the good remain true to themselves, grow from the encounter and persevere. Also, she likes guns. A lot.
My 2c: when Rolling Stone, the NYT, NPR, USA TODAY and every liberal anti-US rag comes up with glowing reviews about an Iraq War movie like in the trailer...does that tell you something?
Found this on the conservative Hollywood website Big Hollywood:
Katherine Bigelow’s direction of “The Hurt Locker” is masterful and might very well place her back where she belongs, at the top of anyone’s list looking for a top-shelf action director. But that’s not enough to save the film from episodic plotting, jarring and unnecessary political statements, a troubling depiction of our troops and an even worse portrayal of the Iraqi people. This is a movie you want to like, but an unsettling after-taste lingers long after the thrill of the set-pieces fades.
Produced and scripted by Mark Boal (who embedded with a U.S. Army bomb squad operating in Baghdad), the year is 2004 and Iraq is a country under siege, thanks mainly to determined insurgents and roadside IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) that seem to be everywhere and frequently come with nearby triggermen lying in wait for the opportunity to do the most amount of damage, preferably to American servicemen and women. Charged with the dangerous and technically complicated job of defusing these bombs is a three-man EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) team led by Staff Sergeant James (an excellent Jeremy Renner) and his squad mates Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Eldridge (Brian Geraghty).
The opening scene’s a wowser, and the 40 minutes that follow do their job in setting up characters, their relationships and at least giving off the appearance that we’re headed towards something bigger involving Beckham, a young Iraqi boy who sells DVDs on the base. When this storyline strangely pans out to be much ado about nothing, the plot slowly deflates into a series well-staged but interchangeable episodes with no over-arching story. You’re about an hour in when you start to feel the 130 minute runtime.
Every time “Locker” starts to weave any kind of spell something unnecessarily political comes along to break it. Mostly the sucker punches come at the end of a scene as if to say, “That will teach you for buying into it.” A tense sequence involving an Iraqi cabdriver who runs a roadblock ends with our troopers roughly handcuffing him. This superfluous drama appears to have been filmed only to allow James to give this Leftist belief an airing, “If he wasn’t an insurgent, he sure the hell is now.”
And that’s just the beginning.
Most troubling is a frighteningly unstable, near-psychotic field commander, Colonel Reed (David Morse), who orders his men to let a wounded Iraqi civilian/suspect bleed out to death even after he’s informed the man could easily be saved with a simple radio call. After watching James work, Reed approaches him with crazy eyes gushing over what a “wild man” he is. Not only is this a monstrous depiction of an American Colonel, it’s faulty storytelling. Morse is a recognizable actor and the disturbing impression his character makes is so strong you keep expecting him to return - maybe even as the film’s antagonist.
Reed isn’t the only officer to take a hit. Christian Camargo plays the utterly clueless Colonel Cambridge, a therapist assigned to help Eldridge deal with battlefield trauma. He chirps cheerily, “Going to war is a once in a lifetime opportunity. It could be fun.”
The worst, however, comes near the end. In a moment of tender humanity James risks his life to treat the body of a dead Iraqi — who may or may not be someone he knows — with respect and care. But again, we’re not allowed a pure moment presenting our troops as they are. Instead we cut to Sanford and Eldridge - two characters we’ve come to admire - only to hear this coldly matter-of-fact exchange regarding the dead Iraqi: You think that’s the “little base rat?” “I don’t know man, they all look the same.”
THE LAST 4 PARAGRAPHS:
It’s too bad the Iraqi people aren’t a protected class among Leftists. Of course, Leftists spent years lobbying in every imaginable way to abandon 25 million of them to death squads and terrorists, so why should it come as a surprise that Michael Bay’s satire of rap culture earns some outrage but “Hurt Locker” gets a pass.
The women are portrayed as either cannon fodder or screaming like savages, and other than a short, strange encounter with a man who wonders if James is CIA, the men are alternately terrorists, a menacing presence, victims, the butt of jokes or utterly clueless. The only Iraqi with a hint of personality is Beckam, but he’s never given a dimension beyond that of a hustler poisoned by our crass American consumer culture, “Wassup, my nigga…? Want the cool shit? I hook you up. Donkeykong? Gay sex…? Gangsta. Hey, man, fuck you!”
No, I’ve never been in the military, but when a film’s over I surely know what my opinion of the characters just portrayed up on that screen is, and I’ve seen this movie twice now trying to reconcile how everything listed above can add up to most every review labeling “The Hurt Locker” as “apolitical.”
Has Hollywood so worn us out that we’ve dumbed “apolitical” down to the point where this portrayal of our Iraqi allies, our troops and the officers who lead them qualifies? I’m not looking for John Wayne and I get battlefield cynicism. “Blackhawk Down” and “Brothers at War” do just fine by me. But when the men in the ranks display cold, casual racism, an American Colonel savagely orders that an Iraqi be left to bleed to death and a profoundly unprofessional protagonist, so demented by war he can no longer love his own son, repeatedly endangers himself and the men in his charge, I don’t see “nuance” or “depth” or “complicated” characters. What I see is politics of the worst kind.
http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jjmnolte/2009/07/02/review-the-hurt-locker-2/
Curious... I only heard about this movie yesterday. It looks really good, and has gotten good reviews.
I guess it’s now out on DVD.
It’s just one opinion. A friend of mine serving in Europe told me that it wasn’t pro-American, wasn’t anti US either. Usually his BS radar would be up and was ready to get pissed off but told me that it was fair.
Then again, I read the Jeremy Renner interview in the LAT during my break at university and he’s a pansy-ass actor. One of those “artiste” types...blechh.
If it is directed by a cultural barbarian like Bigelow it most likely will be cynical, violent, and gory.
She has directed a lot of nasty violent films over the past 20 years. Some written by James Cameron.
Yes, she’s been one of my favorites for years.
EOD ping.
I am retired EOD. Aside from some render safe procedures that are clearly hollywood that Movie was dead on accurate.
Politics are in real life just as they show up in this movie. Pro an con !
I give this movie an 8 out of 10 for anyone wanting to see what EOD teams experience in combat.
Good movie
Thanks rebelbase for the ping.
Here’s part of a WaPo article about the movie sceening for Iraqi vets at the Navy Memorial theatre in DC Friday night. Apparently, “Hurt Locker” passes muster. All I can say is “Finally!”
‘Although Renner couldn’t bring himself to watch “The Hurt Locker” in its entirety at the Navy Memorial screening, he did sneak in for the last 40 minutes. What he found was an audience that quickly apprehended the film’s wry sense of inside humor. A scene where a psychologist tries to convince a specialist that the war “doesn’t have to be a bad time in your life” was met with guffaws. But by far the biggest laugh came when James lies about going to a brothel and an MP promises to let him go if James will tell him where it is. In between those scenes, viewers could be seen leaning forward in their seats; at one point, during a sniper sequence, an audience member whispered, “Oh, sweet” when an American soldier shot his moving human target.
When the lights came up, Renner took the stage in front of the screen to enthusiastic applause. When he started to answer the first question, about what research he did for the role, Renner paused for several moments, trying to gather his emotions. “It was really, really important for me to portray [men] who to me are heroes,” he said, “and how tragic it is that no one knows who the hell they are. I hope I could capture a fraction of what is real.”
“Sure did,” came a voice from the audience, which burst into applause again.’
Our survival has always been our lack of publicity........ the quiet professionals per se. Hell there were times when commanders didn;t know who we were or what we did we had such a clutch on secrecy.
This is a good movie that represents the job with a few hollywood add ons.......few !
Stay safe !
Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll be watching this one.
I haven’t seen a movie since the 1980’s. Bet your Buttocks I’ll get this one though. Big huge thanks to brother Squantos and his troops for all that they did and do for all of us.
((((Squantos))))
Thank you, sir. Thanks to your family, too!
Looks like one for me to go see. Not sure I want my daughter to go until her husband returns from Iraq next year (dad wants to shelter her as long as possible).
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