The Hurt Locker: War Movie + Quality + Tension + Excellent Direction - Accuracy

Rating: 8/10 (5 March 2010)

Good war movies are hard to come by. Whether it's the political agenda, the abundance of clichés, or just the overkill of violence without consequence, its very hard to truly feel for a war movie. Saving Private Ryan didn't help either by raising the bar to a level that has yet to be even challenged. Spielberg's amazing masterpiece combines uncut violence with heart-thrashing tension, groundbreaking cinematography, and an intense amount of heart and undeniable evidence that war is absolute hell. Since 1998, there hasn't been a single war movie to come even close in terms of quality. However, in 2009 we were dangerously close.
The Hurt Locker was a quiet wartime film that swept away the hearts of critics and quietly became the Oscar favorite in the summertime. Instead of World War 2, the setting was the Iraqi war, which has its share of film clunkers. Instead of focusing on the battlefield, The Hurt Locker focused instead of a group of soldiers hired to prevent bombs from going off and killing innocent civilians. What we have is a decent script, nearly flawlessly directed by an underrated director, with a superb cast of actors involved. While the movie misses the masterpiece ranks by not digging deeper into the human psyche and providing clichés it had avoided in the first two acts, it's a great film that mixes suspense, action, and unbearable tension.
This movie, like previously stated, focuses on a small group of soldiers who are part of the bomb squad. They are in charge of making sure no civilians get hurt with any of the bombs that are sprinkled throughout the country. While the accuracy of the content within the film has been heavily contested and criticized, the movie focuses much less towards the big picture (The war itself) and instead focuses on several smaller incidents that are usually little blurbs in American newspapers everywhere. While you loosely read about a suicide bombing, The Hurt Locker throws you right in the middle of the scenario at hand. This Mark Boal script is a page-turner because of the immense suspense and tension involved, and because it allows you to see just how violence and death affects your average soldier. Boal obviously didn't have experience in the battlefield, but knows how to tell a good story.
Accuracy takes a sidetrip, because this film's strong point is the quiet, unnerving action that slowly ruins the psyche of everyone involved, even if they rise victorious. The acting and directing allows the anxiety to spew its way into the viewers. Jeremy Renner provides an Oscar-worthy performance of a soldier that seems to show no fears of death, but at the same time show signs of pure panic. Renner behaves a certain way with a bomb involved, and behaves another way when in a situation that is not his usual calling. But Anthony Mackie is just as effective as a tough-as-nails soldier that shows his true colors when death stares right back. Oddity of this movie is that the bigger names took the smaller roles, including David Morse and Ralph Fieness.
Kathryn Bigelow's film career spans many decades, but had only one hit with Point Break. In The Hurt Locker however, she directs her finest work by stretching many scenes far longer than most directors would dare, turning little situations into extended moments of emotional torture. The sniper scene is the most controversial amongst the critics because of its length and spaghetti western-like pacing. But this scene (like the other troublesome scene involving the main character seeking vengeance) perfectly describes the feelings of the soldiers involved and remains constant with the harsh theme attached: you cannot trust anyone. Every situation has the soldiers pitted in an environment they don't fully know, containing people they know nothing about, as they desperately try to figure out who is a bystander and who is a potential terrorist. The directing is what propels this movie into such high acclaim. If there is someone to thank for the Best Picture nomination, its Bigelow.
Sadly, The Hurt Locker misses the mark because of the final act. The final act has a few of the clichés that it had avoided for so long. If the movie had run a bit less, than it would be amongst the great war classics like Saving Private Ryan, Platoon, and Full Metal Jacket. While mentioning which ones specifically would lead to potential spoilers, just know that it throws the film off and leads to a rather quick ending. The writing was great, but one would have hoped for a deeper analysis into the minds of the emotionally drained men.
Bottom Line: Don't let that bring you down though, because The Hurt Locker is a superb film with great writing and even better directing. Becoming the second-most tense movie of 2009 (Inglorious Basterds takes the cake) The Hurt Locker combines thrills, emotional chills, and enough suspense to make Hitchcock and Spielberg very proud. It dwells away from the average wartime movie by giving us a look into another type of wartime combat, the one that involves bomb detonating and trying to see who is on your side and who isn't. This is the best war movie since Saving Private Ryan, and is one of the best flicks of 2009.