Not quite sure where all of this negative feedback is suddenly coming from...brilliant film

Rating: 9/10 (12 March 2010)

In the past few days i've been reading a hell of a lot of negative feedback and reviews on this site about The Hurt Locker, it has come as a surprise to me, and i'm sure many others. Now, i may be jumping to conclusions here but i believe it may be some sort of scathing backlash after it picked up Best Picture, Best Director and quite a few other Oscars on Sunday. I myself was pleasantly surprised as i felt almost sure that Avatar would be collecting Best Picture and Director etc, feeling it just nips ahead of The Hurt Locker overall. Or maybe for some strange reason a lot of people simply don't like it and have all decided to post their views at the same time.
However, it still deserved to win and congratulations to Kathryn Bigelow for producing a fine film that keeps you on the edge of your seat, full of thrilling tense action that builds up at the perfect pace, holding you in a firm grip of suspense. I won't delve into the Military accuracy and realistic values of this as i am no expert, but i think people who are picking up this film to watch after hearing about the Oscars still need to keep an open mind and not hold such soaring high expectations. It may also be the fact that some viewers and fans of the war genre (like myself) are a little too used to the World War 2 large, epic scenes of battle, for example the masterpiece that is Saving Private Ryan. The Hurt Locker is a war movie set in the present day, and this is modern war...very different to past times and therefore having no massive battles or thousands of men in one scene which is commonly associated with 'war movies'. Instead, it delivers in different more compact but still adrenaline pumping ways, and it works exactly how it was made to do so. To anyone looking for a brilliantly entertaining and tense two hours, you won't find anything better than this.