Making an "apolitical" film is a political statement...

Rating: 6/10 (18 February 2019)

Bigelow and Boal manage to convey the intensity (if not the accuracy) of the street level fighting of the the Iraq war. In terms of placing the viewer in the mindset of war this is one of the truly great war films. Even after re-watching it several times the tension and dread are palatable. The sniper battle is especially hair raising. Likewise, their exploration of what being a bomb tech does to a person on a psychological level is engaging and Sgt. James' recklessness aside rather plausible.
Unfortunately, they set their meditation on the psychology of war in Iraq. It is partially because of the happenstance of when the film was made and partially because of the nature of the Iraq war. They, however, are not interested in the larger geopolitical questions of that war and structure the action to avoid them. They also try to be "fair" by showing a few moments of US soldiers behaving unlawfully and foolishly. Any critique or indeed support of the Iraq war that is remotely introduced in the film is routinely undermined by the script later on. It is "just the facts" neutrality.
Except the film is not neutral ultimately. By ignoring the larger geopolitical questions-should the US invaded Iraq to begin with?-the film implicitly affirms the war. Even Sgt. James' junkie act doesn't really function of a critique of the US military adventurism. James is shown repeatedly as atypical of the military and thus he can't stand in for the policies of the US as a whole. It comes across as filmmakers who is interested in the wrong things; their treatment of the Iraqi's as quasi-zombies (subtextually) is them worryig to much about how bomb techs tic and not enough about if there should be bomb techs.
This is an extremely weak Best Picture.