Customer Reviews

The Hurt Locker

5 star:		(174)
4 star:		(63)
3 star:		(85)
2 star:		(61)
1 star:		(140)

 

 

I wonder what sort of review I would have given "the Hurt Locker" had I not spent 11 years in the Army (about half active duty and the other half reserve and the Guard). I probably would have liked it a lot, but my military experience (which predates the Iraq War but did involve Yugoslavia, Saudi Arabia and Iraq in 1990 and 1991, and Panama in 1989 made the departures from realism (that were invisible to a lot of reviewers here) stand out like blinking neon signs:

1. I thought the idea of the "cowboy" EOD technician sneaking out of the base to go on his own into downtown Baghdad at night in 2004 was laughable, when you think about the fact that I'm sure every soldier over there knows that if they fell into enemy hands, they could expect extremely unpleasant deaths.

2. Set aside the unrealism in item 1, the fact that the cowboy didn't get in trouble for doing something so outrageously stupid and criminal (since he did force an Iraqi at gunpoint to take him downtown) was also ludicrous.

3. I will defer to soldiers and Marines who have served over there and especially to EOD technicians, but I found myself extremely dubious that those guys would be out by themselves in such a dangerous environment. No, they would have had security with them in the form of infantry who would keep watch and protect them while they did their work.

4. The absence of officers apart from one who gushes about the bravery of the cowboy EOD tech and the psychiatrist who gets himself blown up was unrealistic too. Those guys would have answered to a captain or a lieutenant, or a warrant officer in real life.

5. The whole interlude where they were out in the desert with some British mercenaries (or at least that's what I thought they were) was a jarring disconnect given the fact that these guys were EOD techs and not special forces operators. The fact that they were out there by themselves for a prolonged period made no sense since in real life, they would have been yelling on the radio for a quick reaction force or even support from a helicopter.

6. I also found myself thinking, "this is BS" when the two EOD technicians suddenly became a highly effective sniper team operating a weapon that I would imagine very few service personnel who aren't trained and designated snipers or SF operators would ever see (a Barrett .50 caliber rifle)

"The Hurt Locker" has some beautiful and striking visuals and there are some scenes with genuine tension like when the cowboy EOD tech discovers that the single IED he's found is only the first stage in a multiple IED set up...but as I said in my review title, these moments of genuine, realistic excitement got overwhelmed by the silly stuff.

Frankly, if you want to see bomb disposal work that looks more realistic to my eyes at least, you should try renting or buying the British series "Danger UXB." That seemed far more realistic than "the Hurt Locker"

DANGER UXB

Update: According to someone who works EOD who made a comment below, EOD teams sometimes use Barrett rifles to blow up devices, so the two guys playing sniper wasn't quite as silly as I thought it was ... but the overall interlude of them out there with the British mercs remained very silly in my view.

Had I not served in Iraq in 2004, perhaps I could have maintained a suspension of disbelief and enjoyed the film. However, it is extremely irritating to have the producers of this film and high-level movie critics gush about an "accurate depiction of war" when it is about as close as 2001: A Space Odyssey is to an accurate depiction of NASA. The writer claimed he spent "some time" embedded with an EOD unit, but I can't imagine his time amounted to too much more than a week.

Let's start with some glaring discrepencies. In the film, all soldiers seen are wearing uniforms known as ACUs, which feature the digital camouflage pattern. In 2004, those uniforms had not yet been fully developed or issued. Soldiers wore the DCUs, which feature tan and brown woodland-style camouflage patterns. ACUs were being field-tested with select units, but the prototypes still retained the traditional camo. At that time, only the Marines were wearing uniforms with digital patterns, though their uniforms feature different color patterns and different cuts. Additionally, every soldier wears an American flag patch on the right shoulder. These were conspicuously absent throughout.

The presentation of humvees and other military vehicles add a further level of unreality. Military vehicles typically have unit and vehicle identifations stenciled on bumpers, doors, or hoods. The names of principle occupants are usually stenciled on each side of the windshield. The dashboard and area between the front seats is packed full of radio equipment. There are generally MREs and misc. mission oriented debris lying around the interior. Not much of this was evident. What was evident was the utterly and completely absurd medivac scene that featured HUEY helicopters. Yes, those same Hueys that saw a great deal of service during the Vietnam War, but have long been replaced by the ubiquitous Blackhawk.

The ridiculous misrepresentation, misuse, and absence of military equipment continues on down to things like night optical devices (NODs). NODs are those things soldiers strap to their helmets and flip down over their eyes to see in the dark. All throughout the movie, the three main characters are shown to have the NOD mounting plates attached to their helmets. Yet, when they tear off on a hunt for bad guys during a night mission they run around shining flashlights, which is tactically one of the dumbest things a soldier could do.

Running around with flashlights at night is but one example of things real soldiers would not do. They would not split up "to cover more ground." An enlisted soldier would not call a colonel "colonel." He would call the colonel "sir." A soldier would not sneak out of base disguised as a civilian, hijack an Iraqi's car at gunpoint, confront an Iraqi family, then weasel his way back on base with the lame excuse he'd been to whorehouse. There would have been serious consequences to his actions. The film gives the impression that the three EOD soldiers are gun totin' cowboys who answer to no one. In reality, there would be commanding officer who would, at the least, issue operation orders and hold the NCOs to a certain level of accountability.

The characters themselves are fairly unbelievabe. They don't talk like real soldiers. I didn't hear "hooah" uttered once. Nor did I hear much of the plethora of abbreviations and acronyms that comprises the military jargon spoken by soldiers. While SSG James' two sidekicks are cardboard cut-outs of Hollywood military cliches, James himself is an erratic, irresponsible, borderline-psychopath who would not last long in the leadership of men or the diffusement of bombs. His obsession/concern for the Iraqi boy he has unrealistically befriended is completely out of character.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. On the plus side, the landscape does look like Iraq, and the urban shots replicate the appearance of Baghdad quite well. The acting is adequate, I suppose, but I was not particularly enthusiastic about any specific performance. Quite frankly, it amazes me that they would make a film this sloppy and inaccurate, when correct information is so readily available. As it is, this is not a realistic war movie; it is a fantasy with nearly as much imagination as Avatar.

On a closing note, if you want to see an excellent film that provides an accurate view of the Iraq War in 2004, check out "The War Tapes." It's a documentary shot by soldiers themselves, and provides honest insight into the impact of war's daily grind.

I wanted to like this movie...I really, really did. I had seen and read alot of hype for it, rave reviews, and alot of talk of Oscars. After watching it however, I can't see why.

There have been alot of war movies over the years, but there has yet to be anything worthwhile watching for Iraq. This is not Platoon, the Dirty Dozen, the Battle of the Bulge, it isn't even Inglorious Basterds. True, other Iraq fair has fallen flat or just plain sucked. This wasn't as bad (Over There) and didn't have an idiotic and misguided political statement (Redacted...Marc Cuban burn in hell) but it wasn't all that good.

There's the typical military irregularities, such as uniforms (US flags are worn on the right shoulder of soldiers but in the movie they're either on both or none), equipment (magazines disappear and reappear between scenes, and the 6 wheeled APC used by US soldiers is in fact an APC used by the South Africans, not Americans) and overall impossible situations (a single vehicle by itself? REALLY?). These SERIOUSLY detract from the movie, so anyone not familiar with anything military get a somewhat twisted inaccurate view of operations in country.

The storyline overall really has no point, as all it is are daily missions, almost vignettes, of the EOD team's daily ops.

The last 15 minutes is the only thing that saves this movie and gives it a star. the acting, emotion and theme (I won't spoil it) would've made this an AMAZING movie, had it been a constant throughout. Sure, there's small snippets of emotion and feeling, but at times too brief to really feel it.

Yes, I can see this movie receiving some nominations, such as best actor for Jeremy Renner, but to win it I think is a bit much. As an active duty soldier with over 8 years service and 2 deployments, this movie just seemed lackluster and some of the situations too far fetched to really appreciate the movie, although it wasn't the total crapfest of other movies (Home of the Brave)

The ratings of this movie are surprisingly all over the place, so I read many reviews to try to understand why. It appears that a major area of contention is whether this movie is sufficiently realistic. A number of people with military experience, including some with experience in Iraq, argue that the movie is too unrealistic, but their complaints often focus on technicalities which, though not always trivial, perhaps aren't too important for the typical non-military viewer. And there are also a number of military people who find the movie quite realistic, so it seems that the experiences of military people vary substantially. Considering all of this, my sense is that the movie reasonably faithfully portrays at least the essence of the experiences of at least some military people, so it's accurate enough for its purpose.

If so, I found this movie to be a powerful and riveting depiction of why "war is hell," including "war" which is actually occupation. On the American side, our troops face a situation where they often can't tell friend from foe, they can die very unexpectedly and suddenly, and they're constant witness to destruction and death, including the death of people who become their friends. On the Iraqi side, they have the natural resentment, bitterness, and defiance of people who are being occupied by a foreign power. Never before have I had a such a clear sense of why war must be avoided unless there's truly no other reasonable option.

This leads to the issue of whether the movie has a political message. Many reviewers have argued that it doesn't overtly have such a message, and I agree. But, at the same time, by depicting how pointless and detrimental the occupation of Iraq is, with suffering on all sides, the movie does help to clarify why we never should have gone into Iraq in the first place, and why we need to get out ASAP. Let's remember that inspectors had already failed to find any WMDs after extensive searching, there was never any credible link between Iraq and 9/11, and there was never any credible evidence or argument showing that Iraq posed a genuine threat to the US. By going in there, all we've done is destabilize Iraq and open the floodgates of civil war, cause a huge loss of life on all sides, expend many billions of dollars (which we obviously can't afford), and make America LESS safe. The only parties which seem to have benefitted are the defense contractors who have made tons of money at the expense of the American public (you and me). If we really want to "support our troops," we need to get them out of harms way and bring them home to their families, rather than asking them to endure enormous hardships and risk their lives for a conflict which makes no sense.

Anyway, getting back to the movie, my point is that the movie vividly illustrates the basis for my comments. Very highly recommended.

This wasn't a terrible movie, but it wasn't recommendable either. I viewed this knowing that it won some awards and drew a lot of attention so I expected something that was well done, but unfortunately it wasn't. The writing was pretty darn bad. Everything the characters say has been said in other movies, they are more stereotypes than not, and I think anyone with a cursory knowledge of the military (and by that I mean someone familiar with Call of Duty video games and the History channel) will find all kinds of Military inaccuracies; I can only imagine what some of our servicemen thought when watching this. In all I must have missed something because the characters are more caricatures (not particularly likeable) and the story was aimless, more of a day in the life kind of thing with no point other than a series of happenings. Unfortunately I think this film is the product of hype rather than quality, and at around two hours and twenty minutes I'd recommend checking something else out.

"The Hurt Locker" is about Sergeant First Class William James and his explosive ordinance disposal unit's adventures in Iraq. While James is an interesting character and there are certainly many suspenseful moments in the movie when bombs are being defused and the unit is being shot at, there is no real compelling storyline to this movie at all. Instead, the movie watcher is taken from one stressful Iraq experience to another in a constant onslaught of tense situations. Unfortunately, even most video games out there nowadays have just as much suspense as "The Hurt Locker," but with better storylines. I have absolutely no idea why this movie is considered one of the best movies of 2009, and can only attribute it to the inherent positive bias that movie critics have for any movie that has a theme of "War is Bad," even if there is no story that goes along with it. Still, "The Hurt Locker" is a good watch on video and much better than the average action movie being made today. However, I don't think that it's anything special. Hopefully, someday a movie can be made that combines the tension of the Iraq War experience with a great story. "The Hurt Locker" is just not that movie.

The Hurt Locker opens with a quote; "the rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug." Kathryn Bigelow's film is probably the most acclaimed film of the year, ending up on many critics' top 10 lists, with Roger Ebert going so far as to call it the 2nd best film of the decade. When a film receives such monumental acclaim, it's hard to imagine it living up to expectations and you will find those who have already called The Hurt Locker overrated and disappointing...I was skeptical, I'll admit, but The Hurt Locker delivers.

Sgt. JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Spc. Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) are part of a bomb-defusing squad in Baghdad. In the beautifully filmed, poetic opening scene their sergeant (Guy Pearce) is killed when a bomb goes off. SSgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) is brought in to replace him. Sanborn and Eldridge notice immediately that James is more reckless than their previous technician and he has no reservations about it. He's not cocky, but he knows he's good at his job...Even when he's putting both himself and his team in more danger than necessary.

Some familiar faces pop up for brief appearances, actors like David Morse and Ralph Fiennes but the film is owned by Renner and Mackie. The acting in this film has been raved about, but this acclaim has been muffled with more focus being cast on the film as a whole and its female director. This is unfair because both Renner and Mackie carry the film and they both give terrific performances. The acting here is subtle; these are not powerhouse, fishing for an Oscar-type performances. It's the subtlety of the performances, the tapping into real people rather than characters that make these performances great. Renner, especially, nails his role as the adrenaline junkie. Here's an actor that once made Jeffrey Dahmer a sympathetic character and here he really brings you into the mind of James, showing how he thrives on his job rather than just presenting this to you. Both actors breathe so much life into their characters, they rarely let you in on the fact that they are acting...Their performances seem real.

In the film industry, the most celebrated directors are almost unanimously male. Kathryn Bigelow has now made her presence known amongst her male colleagues (notably her ex-husband James Cameron, who has also been celebrating the critical and financial success of a "small" film he made), showing that a woman can handle challenging, powerful material that is typically left to male directors. If she were to win the Best Director Academy Award that she will inevitably be nominated for, she will definitely deserve it.

The Hurt Locker works as an action/suspense film and a character study/human drama simultaneously. It's remarkable that Bigelow has managed to balance it out so well, making a film that will appeal to different people for different reasons. Aside from getting into the mind of its main character, it has some intense scenes of heart-racing action; made even more effective by the very real setting...The film was shot in Jordan, at times only three miles from the Iraqi border. Cinematographer Barry Ackroyd deserves his share of credit, using frenetic, yet coherent filming techniques that adds to the realism without making the film hard to follow. Not being a Hollywood production, The Hurt Locker benefits even further by not being afraid to enter darker places that would have been ignored and/or glossed-over to conform to Hollywood standards.

I've never been big on war movies, but The Hurt Locker completely exceeded my expectations. It's a great film, easily one of the best of 2009 and it's hard to imagine another film about the Iraq war topping this in scope, entertainment value, or relevance. This film is not just a flash in the pan either and I think that it will continue to gather more acclaim as the years pass. It's a true masterpiece; poetic, exciting, and memorable.

GRADE: A

My problem with the Hurt Locker is that it is marketed and hyped as being unique and accurate while in reality it is not unique and not accurate. The Hurt Locker is full of the same military cliches that every action movie has: the main characters answer to no one, they do what they want when they want, and break off into random one-man-army moments like clearing buildings or taking to the streets at night to hunt down bombers. This is the kind of thing that makes a movie interesting, sure, but it is not accurate. The inaccuracies mount when you compare how the procedures and tactics of this unit are not consistent with our Army EOD teams. In the end the movie felt disjointed and I came away from it entertained but confused about what I was supposed to feel about it.

Set in modern Baghdad, The Hurt Locker follows the lives of three of the US Army's bomb disposal technicians as they battle insurgent bombers and their own nerves to stay alive in the world's most dangerous war zone.

The Hurt Locker was directed by Kathryn Bigelow (Blue Steel, Point Break) and, released in 2008 to much fanfare and critical acclaim, it was nominated for nine Oscars and eventually won six. It's hard, now, to see what the fuss was about. It is a fairly conventional war movie, typical Hollywood fare in fact and I can see nothing about it that lifts above the herd and it is certainly not the equal of, for instance, Saving Private Ryan, Das Boot or Platoon.

Yes, it's well shot and composed, effectively conveying the dusty, sweaty, grimy life of a soldier in Iraq. Indeed, there are some award winning individual shots (the slo-mo explosion sequence where the dust jumps off the roof of a car is particularly tasty) but the ensemble is barely above the ordinary - Three Kings did it just as well.

It's well acted. Jeremy Renner does a fine job as the maverick bomb disposal tech (you may be able to guess where I'm going to go with this), Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty convince as his strung-out support crew and there are some surprising (and brief) cameos from Ralph Fiennes, David Morse and Guy Pearce. But, again, the acting is merely convincing: steely eyes, square jaws, head-in-hands-despair... all that sort of thing.

The story, I'm afraid, is what lets the film down. The word "maverick" really should be banned from use in Hollywood these days (Tom Cruise and Tony Scott have so much to answer for). It really does a profound disservice to the exeptional bravery and professionalism of bomb disposal technicians of all nationalities to see the lead character yank a cluster of IED's from the ground by their detonating cords, opening the boot of an explosive-laden car by means of a hefty kick or letting off a smoke grenade as he approaches the danger zone "to create a diversion". There are plenty of other military mess-ups; some of these are clearly excusable cinematographic necessities (soldiers standing around in groups, M113 armoured personnel carriers instead of Bradleys and so-on). However, plenty of others are inexcusably sloppy and betray the absence of a decent (or any) military advisor. I was particularly offended when the three main characters rushed off alone and on foot into the hostile night-time suburbs to track down a bomber... and then split up because "we can cover more ground that way" for heavens' sake! If the US Army really operate like this (and I cannot convince my self that they do) there is hardly any surprise that the war has lasted so long and achieved so little as it has.

In the end, this is a deeply ordinary film and it is prone to many of the usual war movie cliches; tensions between the maverick and his by-the-book colleague ultimately resolved, friendship with with the local street urchin, the race against time, shall I cut the red wire or the blue wire? oh the horror! oh the humanity! think of the children!

Without the hype it would have made a fairly decent war movie and I would happily have given it three stars. Because of the hype, my sensibilities are offended and I can only give it two.

If you really want to know what it is like to be an EOD officer in Iraq, there are plenty of decent memoirs - Eight Lives Down being a decent place to start.

When facing a tiger, you run, hide, or face it head on. In THE HURT LOCKER, the tiger is the ever-present possibility of being blown to bits, and the main character faces it head on.

Set in Iraq, the three men of Bravo Company's EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) team have a healthy respect for roadside bombs. But despite taking all precautions, disaster strikes, leaving the team down a man. The replacement, Staff Sergeant James, is a self-confident veteran of Afghanistan whose first act is to remove the protective barrier over the windows of his barracks. He declares that he likes the sunlight and that the plywood won't protect him from an impact on the ceiling, anyway. It's the first hint that his world view might be a little different from that of the other members of the EOD. The first mission leaves no doubt of that. Upon arrival at the scene of the improvised explosive device (IED), SSgt. James refuses to use the remotely controlled robot, opting instead to wear "the suit" and search for the bomb himself. Since the bomb could be detonated at anytime from any of the buildings lining the street, SSgt. James' choice to go on foot seems insane, especially to his own men. Everyone, including the audience, is left wondering what would make a man take such unnecessary risks, but SSgt. James does so time and again. It is absolutely no surprise when, at the close of the movie, we see him returning to Iraq for another 365-day tour of duty. The simple fact is that he loves his work.

I couldn't write this review for several days after seeing THE HURT LOCKER. I had to let it simmer on my subconscious for a while. The filmmakers wisely chose to stay away from any political statements and any kind of subjective commentary by the characters. All of the characters are 100% believable (to a civilian, at any rate), and they all seem 100% sane within the context of their own actions. This is to say that while I would not don the suit and march up to an IED, I do not see SSgt. James' willingness, nay eagerness, to do so any more insane than a racing driver who loves to roar around the track at more than 200mph. This man loved his work. It focused him and made him feel alive. And he was very good at it.

The movie also reminded me of classics such as The Best Years of Our Lives, the William Wyler movie that depicted the difficulties of returning WWII veterans. While THE HURT LOCKER doesn't dwell on this aspect, it shows it starkly in about 3 minutes worth of scenes. The most jarring is a pair of scenes which start with a horrible incident in Iraq and switch almost immediately to SSgt. James back home in a grocery store aisle trying to decide which of 500 boxes of cereal to buy. I watched that thinking, "Free Willy!"

Also of note is the lack of blood and guts in the movie. They didn't need it to tell the story. There was some crude language, but, and I am not exaggerating, there was more of that in Trading Places, which I watched again recently. The acting was all top-notch and believable, made doubly so by some A-List cameos who get killed after 5 minutes on screen. I sat there thinking, "But I liked him. I wanted to see more of him. He can't be dead." As I pondered this later, I realized that perhaps that was the intended effect. Perhaps, and if so, then it was genius - this was a way to make the movie more personal.

I also think it's worth spelling out that THE HURT LOCKER is not so much a war movie as it is a movie set in a war. The characters could have been firefighters or cops or any number of high-danger professionals, and the story would still have worked. Even so, I wouldn't change a thing. THE HURT LOCKER works just fine as it is.