The Hurt Locker Review

I'm going to be quite honest with people on this, and in all likeliness it will cause people to think I'm crazy, and perhaps condemn my blog to death, but I really didn't like The Hurt Locker that much. I saw it at the height of its run when people were saying it was a lock for a Best Picture nomination, and reviews were skyrocketing, and perhaps the huge amounts of hype had an adverse affect on me. I ultimately found myself leaving the theatre disappointed, and unsatisfied.

The film seem narratively hashed together, with these characters being put together and then simply doing their job. Is it a risky job? Yes. Is there a ton tension while their doing it? Yes. Does it really go anywhere? I frankly couldn't tell. The job of the three main characters is to go out to populated areas (in Iraq?) and disarm bombs. The head of the team is really a cut-loose and risky sort of guy, who stays out there to the very last second, because he loves his job. He was married, and had a child, but ultimately in the end he decides he doesn't really care as much about them as he does his job. As Ryan Bingham's sister said in Up in the Air "What kind of a fucked up message is that?"

The greatest amount of emotional tension is when the team is told to disarm a "body bomb", which if you couldn't tell from the name, is a bomb surgically placed inside a human body. That situation played out on screen exactly how I saw it in my head, and I mean exactly. Nothing shocked me about it, and I felt that I'd already seen this film before. Ultimately the film is an mash-up of the mission the team did, and somebody decided which were most relevant and put them together, but I ultimately found that there was something missing from the film, that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

Now that it's several months later I can tell that what was missing in the film, was the emotional revelation, or the conquest of evil that should come at the end. But there was no emotional change in the character, or any lasting victory for the group. We just reaffirm who the characters are and what the aspects of their characters are. I just didn't find a reason for me to be in the theatre at all. Sure there were some powerful aspects of the film, and it does a realistic portrayal of how things in Iraq are, but I expect something more from a film. Also, one thing that I can't stand is that this film at one point got hype for best original score, which if you see the film you will realize how ridiculous it is. My grade for this film is 3 out of 4 stars.