THE HURT LOCKER 1. The best part about The Hurt Locker is that there are no speeches. Nobody pauses in the middle of the action — which follows around a U.S. bomb squad rushing into one deadly situation after another — to dreamily editorailize for the audience’s benefit. No “why are we here anyway, Bob?” or “When’s this war gonna end, Frank?”These are men who are far too busy staying alive to have a moment to think about This Damned War. You want to know why no one’s going to see movies about the Iraq War? Because no one wants to be pounded over the head with the disaster they already know. I assure you, Brian DePalma: No one wants to hear what you have to say about this war. 2. They’ll want to see this. Director Kathryn Bigelow knows how to make an action movie, so she’s made one. The first hour of this film will have you hiding under something dark and heavy. We meet our three main heroes — James, Sanborn and Eldridge — as they navigate one harrowing situation after another, all founded in a basic cinematic terror: Red wire, blue wire, cut the wrong one BOOM. That this is taking place during the Iraq war — facing a legitimate, perpetual danger our troops deal with every day — is something that’s noted, and moved past. Bigelow wrings each of these scenes for all they’re worth; she knows how to build tension, release it slightly and then lower the hammer. The defusing sequences (successful … and otherwise) are master classes in filmmaking, and you can count on this movie being taught in fundamental film courses. This is how you make a movie. Not An Iraq War Movie. A movie. Bigelow’s smartest choice is not to apologize and hand-wring about making a film about Iraq. Roger Ebert once wrote that a film has to entertain first, before it deigns to do anything else. Bigelow isn’t messing around here. 3. A subtext here, as in all of Bigelow’s films, is male aggression. There’s a particularly brutal scene in which our soldiers, after a narrow escape, head back to the barracks, get piss drunk and then take turns beating the shit out of each other. The point is clear: This work is breaking them down to their basest instincts. Bigelow’s less judgmental here than in some of her other films — the point of Blue Steel seems to be “it’s impossible to be a female cop because inevitably someone, murderer or fellow cop, will end up trying to rape you” — because she obviously respects these men and feels, acutely, their inability to express their fear and pain through anything other than violence. But still: The US army has tens of thousands of brave women serving in Iraq, but we don’t meet a single one of them. The only woman we do meet is Sgt. James’ wife, who’s married and pregnant back in the States, waiting for her man to come home, as if this film were set in 1946. Bigelow comes close to overstating her case. 4. The movie loses a little steam after its mesmerizing first hour, if just because it inevitably has to start commenting on the action rather than simply pounding us with it. We learn some more about Sgt. James (he can’t handle normal life and needs the “drug of war”) and Sgt. Sanborn (he just wants to go home). We get various snapshots of What It Means To Be In Iraq and Why It’s Chaos. We even meet a Jeremy Davies Private Ryan character, a talk-it-through academic meant to represent how cowardly the rest of us, the audience, would be if faced with actual combat. Little of this is needed. The movie’s kinetic enough that we get that these are Real Men in the first five minutes, and by the time Sgt. James is standing lonely in a suburban supermarket, missing the rush of battle, we really get it. 5. Small quibbles. This is an outstanding war film because it’s aware that it’s a film, not a polemic. It’s muscular enough to shake off any But This Is The Bad War! hints at politicizing as besides the point. This movie could take place on Mars and work. But it doesn’t. It takes place right now. Does that add an extra level to it? It does … but only because Bigelow’s smart enough to know she doesn’t have to underline it. When we look back at most films made about the Iraq War in the heat of the conflict/quagmire, we’ll feel a little embarrassed that most characters kept stepping outside the movie to Opine About The Injustice Of It All. Not here. When we talk about Iraq War movies, this’ll be the one we talk about. GRADE: A-

THE HURT LOCKER

1. The best part about The Hurt Locker is that there are no speeches. Nobody pauses in the middle of the action — which follows around a U.S. bomb squad rushing into one deadly situation after another — to dreamily editorailize for the audience’s benefit. No “why are we here anyway, Bob?” or “When’s this war gonna end, Frank?”These are men who are far too busy staying alive to have a moment to think about This Damned War. You want to know why no one’s going to see movies about the Iraq War? Because no one wants to be pounded over the head with the disaster they already know. I assure you, Brian DePalma: No one wants to hear what you have to say about this war.

2. They’ll want to see this. Director Kathryn Bigelow knows how to make an action movie, so she’s made one. The first hour of this film will have you hiding under something dark and heavy. We meet our three main heroes — James, Sanborn and Eldridge — as they navigate one harrowing situation after another, all founded in a basic cinematic terror: Red wire, blue wire, cut the wrong one BOOM. That this is taking place during the Iraq war — facing a legitimate, perpetual danger our troops deal with every day — is something that’s noted, and moved past. Bigelow wrings each of these scenes for all they’re worth; she knows how to build tension, release it slightly and then lower the hammer. The defusing sequences (successful … and otherwise) are master classes in filmmaking, and you can count on this movie being taught in fundamental film courses. This is how you make a movie. Not An Iraq War Movie. A movie. Bigelow’s smartest choice is not to apologize and hand-wring about making a film about Iraq. Roger Ebert once wrote that a film has to entertain first, before it deigns to do anything else. Bigelow isn’t messing around here.

3. A subtext here, as in all of Bigelow’s films, is male aggression. There’s a particularly brutal scene in which our soldiers, after a narrow escape, head back to the barracks, get piss drunk and then take turns beating the shit out of each other. The point is clear: This work is breaking them down to their basest instincts. Bigelow’s less judgmental here than in some of her other films — the point of Blue Steel seems to be “it’s impossible to be a female cop because inevitably someone, murderer or fellow cop, will end up trying to rape you” — because she obviously respects these men and feels, acutely, their inability to express their fear and pain through anything other than violence. But still: The US army has tens of thousands of brave women serving in Iraq, but we don’t meet a single one of them. The only woman we do meet is Sgt. James’ wife, who’s married and pregnant back in the States, waiting for her man to come home, as if this film were set in 1946. Bigelow comes close to overstating her case.

4. The movie loses a little steam after its mesmerizing first hour, if just because it inevitably has to start commenting on the action rather than simply pounding us with it. We learn some more about Sgt. James (he can’t handle normal life and needs the “drug of war”) and Sgt. Sanborn (he just wants to go home). We get various snapshots of What It Means To Be In Iraq and Why It’s Chaos. We even meet a Jeremy Davies Private Ryan character, a talk-it-through academic meant to represent how cowardly the rest of us, the audience, would be if faced with actual combat. Little of this is needed. The movie’s kinetic enough that we get that these are Real Men in the first five minutes, and by the time Sgt. James is standing lonely in a suburban supermarket, missing the rush of battle, we really get it.

5. Small quibbles. This is an outstanding war film because it’s aware that it’s a film, not a polemic. It’s muscular enough to shake off any But This Is The Bad War! hints at politicizing as besides the point. This movie could take place on Mars and work. But it doesn’t. It takes place right now. Does that add an extra level to it? It does … but only because Bigelow’s smart enough to know she doesn’t have to underline it. When we look back at most films made about the Iraq War in the heat of the conflict/quagmire, we’ll feel a little embarrassed that most characters kept stepping outside the movie to Opine About The Injustice Of It All. Not here. When we talk about Iraq War movies, this’ll be the one we talk about.

GRADE: A-

  1. editorlisa reblogged this from leitch and added:
    Nominated for 2 Spirit Awards for actors Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie,
  2. vaughnshirley reblogged this from leitch
  3. leitch posted this