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elbarto1 · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2008 8:04 pm **Posts:** 3080

This one caught me off guard.

It was a visually stunning film with expert cinematography/acting but the plot/themes werent what I was expecting to see. I didnt dislike the film but when I expect one thing and get another sometimes it doesnt sit well with me and I need another viewing.

The trailers lead me to expect a dramatic action film - while this had both, it was much more subtle and a different film than I expected.

Regardless, this is a good film reminiscent of psychological war films like Jarhead (alot) and Full Metal Jacket (a little) that requires a repeat viewing from me to give an accurate review.

Recommended if you like films about the psychology of war, rather than just action packed battle scenes.

voodl · **Joined:** Sun Feb 25, 2007 9:48 pm **Posts:** 1145

Best movie of the year and zero response in this topic...what a irony!

zeppelinrox · **Joined:** Fri Feb 06, 2009 3:35 pm **Posts:** 920

I prefer happy lockers.

zing!

This is on my list of films I want to see though

Gaith · **Joined:** Tue Jul 01, 2008 12:08 am **Posts:** 1233

The Netflix fairy actually delivered me this one, but I had to return it unseen so as to get a different disc for a date. One of these days, I'll get it back... :razz:

voodl · **Joined:** Sun Feb 25, 2007 9:48 pm **Posts:** 1145

THL is nothing special, not deserve for awards...just Blair Witch Project in Iraq, very naive and poor acted....and sniping scene in THL is boring while in Jarhed is tense. Jarhead win. THL 6 oscars, Jarhead even didnt had nomination as far as I remember....world is unfair!

Hymie · **Joined:** Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:39 pm **Posts:** 247

Jarhead was not a good movie, this one was. :smile:

That's an easy reason as to why the awards favored The Hurt Locker.

The reason why I feel The Hurt Locker is so good is because it really describes and shows the situation in Iraq. It doesn't have to force tension in scenes you wanted, as they are always surrounded by tension. It's not really cinematic in a lot of ways which I appreciate. Another thing I enjoyed was that it didn't feel the need to force a political agenda on the audience. It wasn't about the war, it was about James and his struggle to find what his life was all about. I'll remember this movie for years as the realism really helped create the scene and for a time, I actually felt they were filming in Iraq.

The only thing I remember from Jarhead is that a soldier got sent a tape by his wife of her having sex with another guy.

voodl · **Joined:** Sun Feb 25, 2007 9:48 pm **Posts:** 1145

Quote:

The reason why I feel The Hurt Locker is so good is because it really describes and shows the situation in Iraq.

..and that situation is?.....

Quote:

Another thing I enjoyed was that it didn't feel the need to force a political agenda on the audience

because Bush is not president anymore?...and ocupation of Iraq is because there are lots of bomb to disarm?

voodl · **Joined:** Sun Feb 25, 2007 9:48 pm **Posts:** 1145

....and in Jarhed they even dont shoot in the scene while in THL sapper hits running man in a distance...where is realism?

Hymie · **Joined:** Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:39 pm **Posts:** 247

I don't know what you mean with the Bush comment. The film was politically neutral, as it is all about a man who is a career military man who loves the thrill of disarming bombs. There's no comments about the necessity of war or any moral questions. I never mentioned Bush so why you had to says a lot I suppose about your train of thought about the film. If you can't separate politics in a film that does such a good job about not bringing politics into the fold then I suppose it would be hard to enjoy the film.

As for comparing the film with specific scenes in Jarhead, I don't have any recollection of the movie beyond a single scene so I can't comment. But commenting about the scene about shooting a character just based off of THL, that was clearly a feel situation and something that likely happens more than it should. I have talked with numerous people who have seen real combat (whether in Iraq or elsewhere) and all have said that the film is very realistic to the life of an American solider and the situations they are put in.

Gaith · **Joined:** Tue Jul 01, 2008 12:08 am **Posts:** 1233

Spoilers follow. :)

This is a tricky one. Is it expertly made, and powerfully acted? Sure. But does it need to be so long? Then there are some concrete difficulties. The whole Green Zone sequence, for instance, has rightfully been labeled as ridiculous in historical terms (this Green Zone apparently has no walls separating it from the city's slums, which is the whole point of the thing), and James' decision to split up is ridiculous. Then there are the character names: the hero just happens to have a surname that's a common first name, which helps us identify with him, and the stuffy psychiatrist just happens to share the name of the UK's second-best university town/Harvard's hometown. Right.

I generally like the idea of war movies, but am often a bit bored by them, as their emotional palettes tend to be limited to stoicism, sarcasm and grief, and this movie isn't much different. (It's for this reason that I preferred Flags of Our Fathers, which looked at the Pacific Theater from a varied sociological angle, to the unjustly higher-praised Letters from Iwo Jima, which focused much more narrowly on the combat zone itself.) I suspect one could fan-edit out the whole Beckham subplot and Green Zone sequence, and not lose much of importance.

Take a gander:

During the early stages of the post-invasion period in Iraq in 2004, Sergeant First Class William James, a battle-tested veteran, becomes the team leader of a U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit, replacing Staff Sergeant Thompson, who was killed by a radio-controlled 155mm improvised explosive device (IED) in Baghdad. He joins Sergeant J.T. Sanborn and Specialist Owen Eldridge, whose jobs are to communicate with their team leader via radio inside his bombsuit, and provide him with rifle cover while he examines IEDs. Eldridge in particular has battlefield anxiety, and is meeting with an army psychiatrist. During their missions of disarming IEDs and engaging insurgents together, James's unorthodox methods lead Sanborn and Eldridge to consider him reckless, and Sanborn even seems to consider killing James. Tensions mount between James and the other two team members, but they bond during a nightmarish ambush in the middle of the desert. During a raid on a warehouse, James discovers the dead body of a young boy who has been surgically implanted with an unexploded bomb. James believes it to be "Beckham", a young Iraqi merchant he had previously befriended.

Later, James orders his team to pursue two insurgents responsible for a recent explosion. Sanborn protests that the task should be left to an infantry platoon, but James overrules him. (But isn't Sanborn James' superior? He certainly seems like the leader the whole rest of the movie.) :razz:

During the operation, Eldridge is accidentally shot in the leg. The next morning, James is approached by Beckham. The young boy tries to converse with James, who walks by without saying a word. Being airlifted for surgery, Eldridge angrily blames James for his injury.

After failing in a mission to remove and disarm a time-bomb strapped to an Iraqi civilian's chest, Sanborn becomes emotional and confesses to James that he can no longer cope with the pressure of being in EOD, and he looks forward to finally leaving Iraq and starting a family. James returns home to his wife and child and is shown quietly performing the routine tasks of suburban civilian life. One night James confesses to his infant son that there is only one thing that he knows he loves. He is next seen back in Iraq, ready to serve another 365 days as an EOD team member with another company.

-----------------------

(Yes, I know the Green Zone sequence shows how reckless James has become, but that same over-the-top demonstration overshadows and makes us forget the just as effective, and much more memorable, car bomb scene.)

Anyone have any thoughts on this? A lot of critics whom I deeply respect loved the hell out of this movie, but I don't really see why it couldn't have been somewhere between around 90 minutes rather than 130. How long does it take, after all, to communicate the movie's only real idea - that war is a drug?

As for the movie itself, well, putting away my qualms over realism, and taking it on its own partly-fictional terms... it's pretty good. B+, I guess.

Gaith · **Joined:** Tue Jul 01, 2008 12:08 am **Posts:** 1233

Oh, and how could I forget the scene where James hijacks the truck with the driver inside, is driven to some possibly totally random house, and then orders the guy (who doesn't speak English) not to leave?

Hey, a**hole, I thought when he said that, take the guy's keys, then!

But no, he just trusts the guy who may not even have understood him, and - surprise - the guy drives off!

The above-linked blog also mocks the notion that an American would survive jogging alone to the Green Zone at night, which I sorta wondered at, but was ready to go with. But the key thing, as well as the following raid through the non-walled Green Zone, really makes me rethink my B+. I might just end up rating it a B.

Zackalope · **Joined:** Sun May 03, 2009 5:12 am **Posts:** 10

Gaith, just came across this thread. I've seen The Hurt Locker numerous times and have the blu ray and coincidentally just saw it again a couple of days ago. A couple of quick points off the cuff: This was a small movie -- I think it had a $12 million budget and didn't even have US distribution for over a year after debuting overseas. I have a friend here in Santa Fe, NM that served as an executive producer and recall when he left to film in Jordan etc.

So there's a "cinderella story" here about a small movie that chugged along and suddenly received a lot of critical attention and media attention. After winning numerous prestigious critics awards, it finally became Oscar Season and it got nominated. Everyone was shocked. Maybe it was Avatar and James Cameron that actually brought some sort of reflexive attention to Bigelow and The Hurt Locker.

After the initial press honeymoon, the backlash began. It might have been "spontaneous backlash combustion" or it could have been "opposition research and tactics" common to political campaigns and in this case, Oscar Campaigns.

Thus began the "is it an authentic portrayal" controversies. I've gone longer than I intended so I'll try and wrap it up: It's a small movie with a flawed protagonist, Will James/ Jeremy Renner. The guy obviously has issues. He's a "wild man" as he's described. He's a simple guy that likes to get drunk at night to forget his pain or his family life. It's after finding the mutilated body of who he thinks was his little friend that he really comes unglued and irrational, going off base, going into that man's house trying to find out what happened to Beckham. He realizes he made a mistake, and runs back to base. They use a quick joke line with the guards "I went to a whore house" to get back on base, and when he gets back to his room, it's back out to that night time blast scene, aka, Hades.

You're right, I don't know exactly how they run off into that ghetto (a real ghetto I was told), but clearly James is a wreck at that point and is not a "typical officer" and makes some horrific mistakes that almost cost Eldridge his life.

Sometime later, he's back home stateside, cleaning the gutter, chopping carrots, and basically tells his baby son, that there's only one remaining thing that he loves...and suddenly he's back in Iraq marching to disarm another bomb.

Being an old war movie fan, what I like about this small movie was that sniper scene...it was slow and elegant...and I liked the shots they picked up like of the dust devil. The screenwriter, an embedded war journalist, basically stitched the story from a bunch of actual incidents (like the mercenaries with the flat tire who threw their wrench away), so to me, the chief flaw was the episodic feel versus any real story that propels the movie.

I was just as shocked as many of the production people that worked on it, that it got nominated, much less won Best Picture, although it was pretty solid, imo.

But in closing, I can't imagine they ever expected they would have to undergo any scrutiny for their movie. I wonder now that it got some critical acclaim, the highest, if there will be a new dvd issued, and whether there were any deleted scenes or footage cut for time that would serve to expand or flesh out the story any better (like why Sanborn was willing to suggest fragging James so early in the picture?).

Cheers,

Z.

Gaith · **Joined:** Tue Jul 01, 2008 12:08 am **Posts:** 1233

^^ Yeah, that was definitely a weird line, which is why I made a point of recommending its deletion in my fan edit suggestion above.

I agree with pretty much everything you say, including the sniper battle being the movie's high point. You've also got a correct sense of James' narrative and emotional arc. The question is: does it really work on its own terms? And did it need an hour and forty minutes to develop that arc, or would an hour have been enough? (My answers: "sorta, but not to the degree that a Best Picture should" and "an hour to 90 minutes would have been enough", respectively.

)

Zackalope · **Joined:** Sun May 03, 2009 5:12 am **Posts:** 10

It's definitely light in the calories for such a long movie, I'm with you. Another brief thought is that a movie like this can go for more mood with the right soundtrack...I only saw it a couple of times, but did you see the Russian tank movie "the Beast" (was that a Kevin Reynolds pic?)...Without looking it up, I remember it had a real moody, eerie desert soundtrack by Mark Isham, who for that matter did the soundtrack for The Hitcher.

In the case of Hurt Locker, (Marco Beltrami?) the music was almost invisible and with a little more effort could have added some heft to the movie experience.

Z.

Hymie · **Joined:** Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:39 pm **Posts:** 247

With a good composer at the reigns, this movie could have been something really special. I still like it quite a bit, but having someone capable to capture the mood while at the same time staying low key (considering that's probably what they wanted) would have made it a great movie. Still, I can't recall any film from last year better than it even with its flaws IMO.

Gaith · **Joined:** Tue Jul 01, 2008 12:08 am **Posts:** 1233

Hymie wrote:

Still, I can't recall any film from last year better than it even with its flaws IMO.

Hymie · **Joined:** Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:39 pm **Posts:** 247

Maybe Inglourious Basterds, I'll give you that. I haven't seen Sin Nombre yet unfortunately so you may be right.

Gaith · **Joined:** Tue Jul 01, 2008 12:08 am **Posts:** 1233

You totally should. It's an excellent thriller through a barely-filmed though beautiful world.

Hymie · **Joined:** Sun Jun 22, 2008 7:39 pm **Posts:** 247

Gaith wrote:

You totally should. It's an excellent thriller through a barely-filmed though beautiful world.

Oh its on my Netflix instant queue. Its just a matter of finding the time.