Going Nowhere

Rating: 1/10 (31 August 2012)

I felt annoyed that I invested the time I did in this film so I do not wish to waste any more than I need to in writing too deep a review on it. In that respect I will keep it brief.
I am giving one star to this based purely on the cinematography, it was shot beautifully; anyone who can film such a bland backdrop and such slow paced scenes of nothing occurring - and keep you watching - deserves and Oscar quite rightly, its a shame the person was wasted on such a pathetic project.
Let me shoot this off right at the start: the credit that this film gets, the praise and all the commendations to things like tension, action, drama, suspense etc... yes they are all there, I'm not taking away from that - but this film gets these accolades undeservingly, it is all there gratis based on the theme alone. It is like heaping praise on "Buried" for getting claustrophobia right, when the film is nothing but over an hour of just a guy in a box. You'd have to be seriously damaged in some way, to make a film based on a guy disarming bombs in a conflict zone, to not convey a sense of tension or suspense; throw in the fact he is practically burnt out and sociopathic and there is your drama angle.
It isn't harsh to say the story could be turned out by anyone in a toilet break, however what is most insulting is that there is no setup or worthy conclusion. The film is all filler and due to a lofty sense of self-worth and the lovely cinematography, the grandstanding sense of it all tries to make it seem deliberate that it is entirely in medias res, and goes nowhere from there, to disguise any lack of coherent story or message deserving of the praise this film earnt.
This culminates leaving any viewer with a taste in film, and an inquisitive mind, feeling that whilst the subject matter in actual life is profound, should a film depicting it be respected based on that alone, or should the film be judged on its own merits? In that light, anyone brave enough should realise and be happy to say Jeremy Renner is his typical one dimensional self, same singular-expression-only face as in Bourne Without Bourne, Avengers and Mission Impossible Whatever - the story is non-existent - the dialogue may as well have been improvised - and the conclusion is insulting. If the message we are all to take from this is something along the lines of evil breeds evil, or if this was to be an examination of the apathy that the realisation of the fact conflict cannot end conflict, brings to a man whose purpose it is in life to fight... then it says very little of the audience the filmmakers aimed this at, and in that sense it is insulting; and it is very difficult to see little more in this piece than that, as it is all so "look how bad war is", and "this man's life is ruined and all he wanted to do was serve his country, awww".
Most insulting is that this film has this topical issue about it all... it is one thing to capitalise on the latest craze kids are into and try to make a quick buck, whether its peddling a cheap film about dinosaurs or ninjas or aliens; but people here knew, make a film about our boys risking life and limb in a sandy place, and make it grim and sad and nobody will dare criticise it for fear of appearing unamerican and a terrorist lover. Well this film is an act of terror in my eyes, I love Jeremy Renner even though I think he is one dimensional just as I think Nick Cage is a one trick pony too but I like him anyway... I can even forgive the unoriginal subject matter here... however, the lazy exploitation of everything serious that it is based on kills this, don't let your patriotism make you feel otherwise. This is slow, uneventful, weak nonsense, shamelessly dressed up in a suffering flag, to try and guilt-trip some sense of duty-to-like-it from all Americans.