OK war movie. Nothing more, nothing less.

Rating: 6/10 (10 February 2014)

The Hurt Locker isn't a bad film, but it's not a great film either. Jeremy Renner does well in his roll as an adrenalin seeking hothead bomb disposal team leader, although his actions in the movie are not very believable. Once that obstacle is hurdled and understood, what we have left is a fairly watchable war film, 6/10. The story is simple: You are in Iraq and your job is to disarm bombs. That's the entire storyline. Sometimes the enemy shoots at you, and you shoot back at them. The camera is very shaky at times to give you that realistic war-like chaos feeling, but for me it just looks like a shaky camera.
The film threatens to evolve into a story when Sgt. James befriends an irritating Iraqi boy (played by Christopher Sayegh) who sells pirated DVDs on the street, and the boy subsequently ends up as a body bomb which Sgt. James defuses. We don't know who killed the kid, or why - but Sgt. James seeks justice. He ventures out into town on his own at night to kill (possibly) the people responsible. The only problem is, the idea fizzles out and nothing happens. But that doesn't make the film unpredictable.
The Hurt Locker is an OK war movie. Nothing more, nothing less.