Pretty good, but not easy

Rating: 8/10 (8 May 2011)

I was late getting to The Hurt Locker - I'd wanted to see it at the cinema, but eventually caught up with it on DVD.
It's a good film - of course it is, films don't win best film Oscars without being pretty good. I couldn't help comparing it with Jarhead - both films are windows into the war experiences of two individuals and more more character studies rather than action films (although both have action elements). The Hurt Locker was much more successful at engaging me with its characters than Jarhead was.
It was interesting to see that the only well-known names played no more than short cameos. Jeremy Renner is going to go on to become a big name because of this, of course - I'm referring to Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes, and David Morse.
I won't repeat praise of the performances, direction, sense of being in danger etc., but I will say that it very successfully conveyed two things to me - one, the queasy sense of an occupied country with foreign soldiers everywhere who are on a hair trigger and, two, the way that the experience of being in this situation creates a bond of camaraderie even between people who don't easily get on well together.