Not bad, but not great either.

Rating: Null/10 (22 April 2010)

The Hurt Locker is a film I've been looking forward to since it came out. Problem is, it's not what I expected.
A few spoilers, be warned. Jeremy Renner's character is seemingly meant to be heroic. But he just doesn't come across in that way a lot of the time. He discards his kit saying he'd prefer to 'die comfy' (not that having a cloud of shrapnel in the face would increase any feel good factor). To add to that, the Iraqis are watching their friends in a way that suggests an attack is about to happen, but Renner's character ignores them and gets on with disarming a bomb that could be dealt with by someone else.
The British contractors are stupid beyond belief in not changing position after firing a sniper rifle (and this is coming from a civilian who has only read about combat), resulting in two being killed and the others seemingly running away.
The next bit that comes as a bit of an oddity is his attempt to catch a man who murdered an Iraqi boy by having the good idea of running around the streets in a hooded top and American combat fatigues, something that is simply asking for trouble.
Having said all this, the setting and the cinematography is great, but the story meanders and eventually falls flat on its face. It's interesting, and there are some expectedly tense moments, and there are some good actors here (especially the ones making their bit part appearances) but it's definitely not exciting.
Now Sniper One, that would make a brilliant film!