The Hurt Locker (2009)

I love this movie so much

Captivating movie !

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

This was not a movie that I really went out of my way to see and while I did notice the hype when it won an Oscar I still didn't try too hard to see it. Having said that The Hurt Locker really is a very good movie. It tells the story of a US Army bomb squad team in Iraq in 2004. The movie is very well acted and overall very good, even to the point of being fantastic. Unfortunately, it was filmed documentary style with hand held cameras. Something I am not fan of at all.Jeremy Renner is Sergeant James, a bomb technician and unlike his easy going predecessor, he is a wild man. He seems not only indifferent to the dangers of his job, he absolutely revels in the dangers. It is the ultimate in thrill seeking behaviour, getting that dopamine surge in his brain. Near the end of the movie, he gets accused of being an adrenaline junkie, but by then we know that the neurochemical at work here is dopamine. Bomb disposal is not just a job for him, it's his passion, his addiction, his reason for being in the Army. While watching The Hurt Locker, a scene from G.I. Jane comes to mind when Demi Moore's character is questioned about her motivations to continue to struggle through SEAL training. She responds by asking how males in the program answer the same question. The answer being "Cause I get to blow things up." In this movie, Jeremy Renner in the role of Sergeant James antes up by placing his very existence into the mix.A movie well worth seeing, but not one I would go back to over and over like I have done with G.I. Jane.

Most of the negative reviews talk about how this film is grossly inaccurate. That is true. There are a lot a inaccuracies that I can see as being offensive towards veterans of the war. But if you look at it as a film, it does what it set out to do. The characters are interesting, the acting is good, the cinematography is good. Really the only problem with the movie is the factual errors. But other than that, it is an excellent piece of cinema.

I will say that I think that Jeremy Renner did a great job on this movie. He deserves all the praise that he got from this movie and it helped show me that there truly was a talent to him that people just need to give a chance to. However, I will admit that I do think that it was a little over blown when the film won the best picture award. That being said, the scene when he was supposed to defuse the bomb was just something that kept me on the edge of my seat the entire scene.

So many people gave this one star, and just as many or more gave it 10; therefore, it is very polarising. Those who only gave it one star are either members of a fan club of someone who did not get an academy award, or their prefer their war movies fast action,with the hero running up a ramp behind a tank to appear that he cleared the tank in one jump, assault weapon blazing away in all directions, and being American of course, he wins the battle. The action fans just didin't get it. This was not a full on gung ho action movie, but a suspenseful account of the daily grind of bomb disposal, where the men know that any second could be their last, and after a tense morning disarming an explosive, they have to go out and do it again. The people whose streets are being made safe hate their guts and don't want them there, and you get the feeling that many of the watchers just want to see the Yanks get blown up. I did keep asking myself why were the Americans there anyway - it's not their war. There were many criticisms, too many to tackle every one, but I will address a few. One was that the insurgents would not kidnap a business man and use him as a suicide bomber. Wrong! They do this and also with children. It is also used to extort money. Another gripe was that the bomb disposal unit would not have had a sniper with them. I disagree. As the several of the men were providing back up coverage, they would have been trained to shoot accurately as well as blasting away with all they had got. Another poster claimed that no Iraqi would be able to shoot so accurately from a distance. Perhaps that kind of thinking is what gets people killed! Never, never assume the enemy is inferior. Those who felt the new war junkie unit leader would have been disciplined or even thrown out of the unit may be right. In a perfect world he would, but in a world where results are all that matter, his callous recklessness would be seen as bravery. Whether or not there were inaccuracies doesn't really bother me. It is fiction. Even real life events are gussied up to sell papers. How many man shot down the Red Baron? How many Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden alone? There is hardly a film based on a true story which did not take liberty with the facts in order to make it more interesting. As long as the film conveys what it is trying to do, I am happy with it, and The Hurt Locker was a different kind of film which kept me glued to the screen for two hours. I took one star off because of the irritating boy selling fake DVD's. There always seems to be one hanging around in war movies. I was not sorry to see the back of him.