Same stuff, different war...

Rating: 6/10 (28 March 2011)

Unremittingly tough and bleak modern-day war movie, heavily decorated at the Oscars. War isn't my favourite movie-subject and to really strike home with me, such a movie has to demonstrate either extra originality or emotional power to really resonate with me.
Well-made and acted as it is "The Hurt Locker" didn't accomplish either with me. I certainly commend director Bigelow and her writing and production team for taking an uncomfortable subject and addressing it so honestly, but the premises that the war does terrible things to people, physically and psychologically (in that order), throws together unfamiliar comrades in arms and of course involves almost inconceivable brutality and violence are hardly new.
It is of course harrowing to see Iraqi citizens coerced into becoming living bombs or even dead bombs and it is natural t witness the de-sensitising of the sensibilities of the three-man American UXB team, confronting these situations day-in day-out, with no human way to release the complex emotions of fear, disgust and at times callousness they experience in going about what is after all their jobs. The three men here all react in different ways, in itself creating tensions within the group and not surprisingly leading them into deadly danger from time to time.
It's all very difficult but of course important for viewers to watch. The acting is as is absolutely necessary grounded in hyper-reality with a proliferation of hand-held camera shots and pan-outs to the usually dumb crowd of what may or may not be innocent spectators only adding to the tension bordering on paranoia that the soldiers experience every day.
I didn't care for the superstar cameos of the likes of Guy Pearce and Ralph Fiennes as their celebrity detracted from the veracity of the other characters in the film. There's little pretence at a linear narrative other than the countdown of the days of duty remaining on the roster of the team, and these probably not unisolated dramatic events which overtake them periodically and they have to react to in such a way as to stay alive, in one piece and retain their sanity.
It was enthralling to watch, in particular the recreation of the devastating effects of an explosion, lifting people off the ground in super-slow motion but the whole just didn't get under my skin enough.
There have been many better war films than this which didn't win Oscars.