The Hurt Locker2009
Drama/Suspense
Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie
Drama/Suspense
Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie
Heading into this award season many experts have The Hurt Locker as the leader to win Best Picture. Kathryn Bigelow is also considered the favorite to win the Oscar for Best Director, which is pretty amazing considering she is only the 4th woman to ever be nominated in that category (Sophia Coppola got nominated for Lost in Translation, really?). She will actually be competing with her ex-husband James Cameron in that category. The Hurt Locker follows an explosive disposal team in Iraq in the year 2004. When somebody finds an IED (improvised explosive device) on the side of the road, they call in these guys to deal with it.
I absolutely loved every scene dealing with the characters actually disabling bombs. The whole time they were with in reach of an active explosive I was on the edge of my seat. The situation itself as well as the way it was shot created an insane amount of tension and suspense. You sort of get a feeling on what characters are gauranteed to survive, but that does not detract with the fact that you really don't know what might happen when they get a call to a bomb site. I am pretty sure my nerves are nowhere near strough enough to deal with something like that in real life (a question a few of the character's ask themselves in the movie).
Now I said I loved every seen actually involving explosives disposal, but that is only half the movie, and sadly, I found everything else kind of boring. It might have just been because the bomb scenes are so tense and exciting nothing could compare, or it could just be the other scenes just weren't anything special. I never really gained any reason to care about the main characters. They share a little of their backstory but it really made no connection with me at all. Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie as the leads do a fine job. I believed them as their characters. They greatly expressed the wide range of emotions a team like that would go through. As great as they actors were, half of the movie really gives them very little to work with. There is a side story about Jeremy Renner's character befriending an Iraqi boy that starts off good, gets really intense, then diverts into what I consider to be an unrealistic and unnecessary detour that greatly took me out of the situation.
One issue a lot of people had with the movie was that the way the character dealt with the bombs and explosives was unrealistic and not how it was actually done. That did not bother me at all. I wasn't expecting a documentary on how to disable IEDs. I think they chose to show the situations in the way that best built tension and kept people's attention. I am okay with giving up a little realism if it is for the sake of improved entertainment. Though it is a valid complaint.
I recommend people check out The Hurt Locker. It has some of the most suspenseful and intense scenes I have seen in a movie this year. Unfortunately those scenes are surrouned by some stuff I didn't find that interesting. There is probably a good chance you will enjoy it more than me since most critics seemed to. It is not my favorite movie of the year, but I didn't hate it so it won't really bother me at all if it ends up winning Best Picture.
3 out of 5 Stars
.
I absolutely loved every scene dealing with the characters actually disabling bombs. The whole time they were with in reach of an active explosive I was on the edge of my seat. The situation itself as well as the way it was shot created an insane amount of tension and suspense. You sort of get a feeling on what characters are gauranteed to survive, but that does not detract with the fact that you really don't know what might happen when they get a call to a bomb site. I am pretty sure my nerves are nowhere near strough enough to deal with something like that in real life (a question a few of the character's ask themselves in the movie).
Now I said I loved every seen actually involving explosives disposal, but that is only half the movie, and sadly, I found everything else kind of boring. It might have just been because the bomb scenes are so tense and exciting nothing could compare, or it could just be the other scenes just weren't anything special. I never really gained any reason to care about the main characters. They share a little of their backstory but it really made no connection with me at all. Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie as the leads do a fine job. I believed them as their characters. They greatly expressed the wide range of emotions a team like that would go through. As great as they actors were, half of the movie really gives them very little to work with. There is a side story about Jeremy Renner's character befriending an Iraqi boy that starts off good, gets really intense, then diverts into what I consider to be an unrealistic and unnecessary detour that greatly took me out of the situation.
One issue a lot of people had with the movie was that the way the character dealt with the bombs and explosives was unrealistic and not how it was actually done. That did not bother me at all. I wasn't expecting a documentary on how to disable IEDs. I think they chose to show the situations in the way that best built tension and kept people's attention. I am okay with giving up a little realism if it is for the sake of improved entertainment. Though it is a valid complaint.
I recommend people check out The Hurt Locker. It has some of the most suspenseful and intense scenes I have seen in a movie this year. Unfortunately those scenes are surrouned by some stuff I didn't find that interesting. There is probably a good chance you will enjoy it more than me since most critics seemed to. It is not my favorite movie of the year, but I didn't hate it so it won't really bother me at all if it ends up winning Best Picture.
3 out of 5 Stars
.
I thought it was great until the end. Then I thought it was garbage. It didn't add anything new to the war genre.
ReplyDeleteI loved the entire movie, personally. Sure some scenes didn't seem entirely realistic, but i think they did the best job they could while making it still enjoyable. I also like the fact that their wasn't any political view points on the war evident in the film. It was all about the characters.
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