Taunt Iraq War Drama

Rating: 8/10 (1 January 2011)

This film did win a best picture Oscar. I think it won because the best film that year was District 9 but since that is Sci-Fi, it could not be the first film of that genre to win the award. As for the over-hyped Avatar, it was too political to win.
This film was perfect for a bunch of reasons. First is that it tells a good story of the danger of being an American soldier in combat. It draws three extremely well placed actors in solid roles and defines them in a well constructed story. The locations look great and the filming is very well done. The situations feel right.
While some folks might feel this film is political, it really is not. Granted it is set in 2004 Iraq but the politics are kept to a minimum and do not get in the way of the story. Thus the film avoids the biggest problem with Avatar. This film sticks with it's knitting.
The only weakness I see in the film has to do with how the troops spend the off hours as the punching amongst themselves seems a little extreme. The other addition is that there are too many people around the bombs being found. I think that civilians would be smarter and stay away from possible blast zones in reality. Here, everybody is a tourist.
While this is the second best I saw in the year it was Best Picture (District 9 is better in my opinion), it is still a very good film. I think too many people thought this film was something beyond what it is. Yes, it tells a very good dramatic story. That really is all it does. For the Academy, that was enough.