The Hurt Locker - Review

WAR, YAAAYYY!!!!

Who doesn't like war movies? Its war, c'mon people. There are tons of flicks in this genre, most of my favorites run through WWII or Vietnam, that in large part is because no war past Nam' has really been portrayed well in cinema. Until now. Kathryn Bigelow has made her masterpiece in "The Hurt Locker" (dumb title in my opinion that really has nothing to do with the film, oh well). Set early on in the Iraq conflict HL throws us into the last 30 days of Bravo Company's bomb disposal unit. Yes this movie is a war movie, about iraq, and its good, very good, this is no "Stop Loss".

By the time the two hours and twenty minutes whizzed by I left my usual seat in the arclight with a pain in my eyes and a dry mouth, basically because I felt that there was no appropriate time to blink or swallow, believe me, this shit is intense. The great and stand out thing about HL is that it does not try to be like previous stand out war films. War has changed, and war movies need to change too. While the action is intense its very different then the wars we see in "Saving Private Ryan" or "Platoon". We follow closely three very different characters. All of them delivering stellar performances. I actually laughed when I noticed the two biggest names of the cast (Ralph Feinnes, Guy Pearce) thinking that they would be the starts, and they are in it for a total of what feels like 6-7 minutes. The main characters are relatively new to big budget flicks, (the guy who plays sanborn doesn't even have a photo on his imdb profile 'snicker' 'snicker'). That doesn't take away from how great the chemistry and performances are of these relative newbies. Mark Boal (writer) really makes you feel for these three, you understand where each are coming from, and you get to know them all relatively quick. Boal wrote 2007's In the Valley of Elah, which was technically about Iraq, but didn't take place anywhere near it. This is Iraq, this is the war we have all watched for years as it graced our CNN news hour, and these are the people fighting it, and these are the people we are fighting. The whole time you are right along with the terror the soldiers have for the entire civilian population, every person could be an insurgent and you find yourself scrutinizing every member of the populace wondering if they are the ones with the cell phone programed to detonate the big bomb your buddy is standing on. There is a sniper scene so gut wrenchingly overpowering in comparison to previous sniping situations in film the entire full theater let out a uniform gasp at its end.

This is good, a good movie, go see it, preferably in theaters.

9/10

-Ben