Movie Review (opinion only): The Hurt Locker

Damn, that's one fine movie.

There was an episode on 60 minutes all about it -- it pretty much tells the whole plot, spoilers and all:

Hurt Locker on 60 Minutes

I expected more violence -- there was plenty of it, but it was contained within a pressure cooker that didn't let up. I am as harsh a critic as I know, and this movie gets the full measure of my two thumbs pointing skyward.

What I liked most was the honest portrayal of the battle field. There were no brave heros defending the American way. The enemies were unclear. The mission was unclear. The point of the war was unclear. An inside of that mixture of noise, there was the story of several deeply flawed characters coping with war. This was no 1950's war movie, no "Good Morning Vietnam" or "The Killing Fields" or "Schindler's List." This was something completely different -- almost a scripted and acted documentary that left me shaking for the character's experiences.

Although a "hurt locker" means something like "A metaphorical place you go when you are painfully unsuccessful in any competitive event" (Slang Dictionary), as a viewer of the movie, it was the place where the soldiers hid their angst and personal struggles with the missions they were carrying out. It was a psychological place, a fiercely personal place where all the cruelty was shut away so that normal functioning could take place. The movie demonstrated again and again that this locker can never be fully shut.

See this one!

--Dorothy

I finally finished getting through The Hurt Locker on Netflix. It took me about five sittings over two weeks. This is the kind of movie that I should like, but didn't, much like The English Patient. I don't disagree with one thing in the review above. Maybe I have a short attention span, but I couldn't take more than 20-30 minutes of this movie in one sitting without getting bored. It plays more like a documentary than a movie. However, if you're going to do something that looks like a documentary, why not do a real one?

I'm with Dorothy on this one. Both me and the Mrs were blown away, we loved it.

Thematically it reminded me of the old Steve McQueen movie The War Lover, but much better done.

We have a few Oscar nominees queued up, waiting for the time to watch them: District 9, 500 Days of Summer (I love watching the Deschanel women in anything), and Inglorious Basterds.

I didn't like it. Started off well, but was too long for my tastes. I am a fan of war movies usually, this one seemed to real though.