An action movie which never becomes a drama

Rating: Null/10 (11 December 2009)

A story about soldiers in Iraq whose job it is to disable IEDs. This movie is being sold as a drama that could potentially get many award nominations but it feels to me more like an ordinary action film. The motivations of the characters are never really known. Jeremy Renner plays the level-headed bomb defusing expert but we never really understand why he's so cool under pressure. Very few hints about his life at home are given, the story instead focuses on more scenes of action and suspense as he tries to defuse more bombs. The secondary characters are decent but the movie doesn't really move beyond being a movie about the tough guy camaraderie in Iraq.
The Iraqis themselves are background characters except for one kid who is only used as a plot device to show that Jeremy Renner is a good guy whereas everyone else is simply 'bad ass'.