How can a film about danger and explosives be so boring?

Rating: 6/10 (21 March 2010)

Synopsis: Some soldiers like soldiering, some don't. Bombs are dangerous. What a revelation.
Hurt Locker is too contrived to be a documentary, but not exciting enough to be a drama. I didn't care about the characters at the beginning, and I didn't care about them at the end. Most frustrating of all, I didn't care (and wasn't surprised) if and when any of the bombs went off. There are plot/narrative problems in virtually every scene. For a film with otherwise decent acting and production values, this is appalling.
Given the gushing praise by the critics, perhaps I should expand on some of the problems I have, so here goes. Sgt James: When he acts recklessly, irresponsibly and possibly illegally, there are no consequences either from his team, other soldiers or his superiors (eg. throwing down a smoke-screen so his team can't see him, even though anyone nearby holding a detonator still can.. kidnapping an Iraqi to drive him off-base into the night, armed & alone, breaking into / trespassing into Beckham's home, all apparently for nothing.. leading his team, again alone, into what could have been a back-alley ambush leading to an international incident..). However, when Sgt James does something logical - like discarding bulky armour which would have offered no protection against a huge bomb, allowing him to work faster and more comfortably to disarm it - his colleagues go nuts. If this is truly against the rules (in real life), then why again are there no consequences. A punch in the mouth for threatening his and possibly others' lives is not 'a consequence'. Also, perhaps I am wrong on this point, but if I was working to defuse a bomb and my teammates were bickering over the radio and would not shut up, I think it is entirely reasonable to turn that radio off or to shoot one of them.
Why do the soldiers speak almost no Arabic? I can understand the need for translators at times, but I live under the assumption that soldiers in foreign countries are trained to communicate with the locals to a basic degree, and - hopefully - to behave towards them with a little more respect, if they expect any sort of cooperation. The behaviour of all military personnel in Hurt Locker only reinforces the worst stereotypes of the US forces.
Would a lone shepherd, in poor cover, really try to take a few shots at an unknown number of armed soldiers? Would those same soldiers have trouble working out that several accurate and deadly gunshots might be coming from the three or four men obviously taking cover in the only structure in a 360 degree radius? Antics at the base: I imagine a lot of soldier-types probably do wrestle or fight or hold stomach-punching competitions, but this does not endear me to their characters. Quite the opposite; it confirms negative stereotypes, and I hope that anyone not able to function at 100% the next day because they allowed a colleague to beat them up (along with that colleague) would be subject to some sort of punishment. Is that how soldiers really bond? Do they sniff each other's asses and chase cars too? Am I supposed to care about these morons? A thought about casting: When you have unknown actors working hard to put in good performances, try not to a) tease us with Guy Pearce & Ralph Fiennes - two of the finest actors in the world - only to get rid of them both within a matter of seconds, or b) disrupt the end of the film with an appearance by somebody as recognisable as Evangeline Lilly, but give her nothing to do which essentially means that her only character trait is 'hey, it's Evangeline Lilly from Lost'. It's not fair to these actors, or to the other actors, or to the realism of the film.
Finally, although I like the look of The Hurt Locker (locations/sets/photography) it strikes me that there are no evocative views, no contemplative shots, no really authentic 'foreign' scenes. Again, HL doesn't work as a documentary, so why not get some free emotion out of the cinematography? The soundtrack (if there was one) does nothing. And the sound effects are not real-enough; gunshots and explosions in real-life are temporarily deafening, producing disorientation and ringing-in-the-ears (and drama). All they produce in Hurt Locker is ennui.