The Winner?......really?

Rating: 6/10 (21 March 2010)

Is the academy serious? Best picture? Is Ashton here? -- These were the questions running through everyones minds at the Oscars. The Hurt Locker is a good film, but not the winner.
Was it action? Was it drama? Jeez I have just got way too many questions for this film. The story follows the experience of Sargent James (Jeremy Renner), a rebel without a bomb who defuses by his own rules. With his integration into the squad after a terrible death of a previous defuser at the beginning of the film, he meets Sergeant Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), James' new teammate who hates his guts. The story from there blossoms into pretty much an empty wasteland of "what is going on." The story is drifty and bleak without a sense of any real connection or lead besides some character progression by our beloved soldiers.
I must say, the film had its moments that captivated me. Such as Anthony Mackie's wonderful performance in general, as well as the suicide bomber scene at the end of the film. The action sequences felt so vivid and real and the wonderfully done shaky hand held camera work simply made me believe I was stumbling around and scared along with the soldiers. However, I never got any sense of story until the very end, where even then I was not super interested. I give it a 6 for the great work done technically on the film. The remaining points I cant give to The Hurt Locker simply for issues in the story.