Not what I was expecting

Rating: 7/10 (18 December 2013)

Nothing that I write here is any kind of comment on the actual military operation in Iraq, nor on those involved: it's purely reflections on the movie.
I don't know what I was expecting except that the film was to do with IOD management in a war zone. It does, to my limited understanding of the subject, a reasonable job in that respect.
What spoiled it for me was the almost comedic gung-ho attitude displayed by most of the soldiers and in particular the over-use of the hand held camera.
The latter is a hobby horse of mine, but almost all the modern directors seem to be enthralled with this clichéd technique, usually in totally inappropriate movies.
Hand held camera-work has its place - and that place is when the story is being told as if from the viewpoint of, for example, a news cameraman in a firefight. It gives authenticity to the sequences. All too often it is used indiscriminately in films that have absolutely no use for it, and is merely irritating.
(I was going to see Captain Phillips last week, until I saw a review that mentioned the director's signature hand held camera-work - I decided to give it a miss.)
The ironic thing about the Hurt Locker is that it is just the sort of story that IS appropriate for the technique. The trouble is that it is completely over the top: the shots are often so deliberately jerky that I was thinking more of my irritation than following the storyline.
It's a valid technique that is so often got wrong, in so many ways. Pity.
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