Sure it's not realistic...

Rating: 8/10 (6 June 2010)

Well, I got nothing to lose if nobody agrees with me on this 'board', since I already know they won't! The Hurt Locker is not realistic. I have no military background but even I noticed that there's a lack of command and discipline straight from the get-go. I never really figured out who's higher ranked, James or Sanborn, until probably when I read IMDb.
Now that the general society is aplenty with war movies that are realistic, watching The Hurt Locker is kind of surreal. It's like back in the 80s. Or 90s, if you count Broken Arrow. Now that was a great flick wasn't it? You may get off my review anytime now.
But really if 'realistic' makes a great movie, then they aren't doing such a great job are they. Heck, how realistic are other great war movies on frontlines these days, Avatar? Inglourious Basterds?? Mind you, I love realistic films and I have bought my Band of Brothers boxset and watched it over and over. But we humans must learn to be flexible. Not rigid.
Lots of great movies can be made about the angst of real life soldiers confronted with hierarchy, politics, and command chains. This is not that movie. This is the movie where the characters are free to do what they want, and their emotions and experiences are thus amplified much more greatly because they do what they always wanted to. (Killin' Nazis! wrong movie.) When realism is gone, war becomes an instrument for the soul, which is the highlight of this film. It's not about conquering which Iraqi town, or disarming what highly complicated bombs to advance to what checkpoint, to be performed in duly realistic manner to great dramatic display. It's about how the individuals survive this experience and what do they get out of it? The emotional landscape of a soldier can't get any simpler and harsher. The war may be complicated, but fear, fatigue, these are simple, brutal feelings that peel away the mind of a soldier. You don't need some sensitive, deeply developed characters with a ton of (realistic) backstory to back him up to say that war hurts. It hurts no matter what kind of joe you are from what background. Your life does not matter when it's your helmet, camouflage and guns and sands that you have with you. And people deal with it in drastic different fashions. Some, simply don't. We aren't here to analyze, we are here to observe and feel. Pick a character, and feel for him.
James is a fiction, you should all know that. He wears different hats in this movie, one of the hats is to be the protagonist and someone that you can see the experience through with.
How does it feel to be a guy that got deployed out into war, with a number "365 days left" on the back of his mind? I can never say I know, but through this movie, I almost felt I did.
I thought I loved Avatar, but this is closer to heart.