Intelligent and Engaging

Rating: 8/10 (13 August 2009)

I had high expectations for this film after all the critical praise it's received. It's probably because of this that I was initially disappointed by the film's first act. The shaky hand-held camera work feels like a gimmick that made it difficult to follow the action or get a good sense of each scene's setting. When the main character, Will James, is introduced, he seems like an over-the-top caricature that belongs in Top Gun or some other 80s action flick rather than an Iraq war movie that looks like it's trying to achieve a tone of gritty realism.
Luckily for us, the audience, things get much better. It was a great creative decision to have the narrative follow a team of bomb specialists. Pretty much everything they do is interesting. Once the film hits its stride, the drama and suspense are powerful and nearly non-stop.
The characters, which border on being clichÃ©s at the beginning, thankfully become developed to the point where they feel dynamic, sympathetic, and, most importantly, believable.
I find it likely that the main character's name is a nod to William James, one of the founders of modern psychology. This is fitting, since it seems like the film's main purpose is to draw the viewer into the psychological realities of war: the excitement, the fear, the post-traumatic stress, the tensions and camaraderie between soldiers, the constant vigilance for an enemy that blends in with Iraqi civilians, and the American soldiers' disconnectedness from their former lives as civilians.
And the shaky camera work that I hated at first grew on me as the film drew me further into these psychological realities. Whereas a steady, patient camera might make the actors' performances and interactions feel melodramatic or unnatural, the hand-held cameras refuse to linger on a man's face as he's enduring life-or-death anxiety or going through emotional turmoil, which ultimately makes the dramatic moments feel more authentic.
All in all, I strongly recommend this film. I'm not sure if it will have enough long-term staying power to become a classic of the genre, but it's certainly a worthwhile use of 2 hours' time and the price of admission.