A solid movie without the cheap thrills

Rating: 9/10 (31 January 2010)

I was expecting to watch this movie and it was going to be littered with tons of cheap thrills and phony sound effects or something to that effect. Because it seems like quite a bit of the war movies I've seen try to take that route, and seeing as this is a movie about an army bomb squad, I was definitely expecting some cheesy moments. This film did not have any! ( of course you will see the arguments on here, of the soldiers uniforms or patches not being a correct match as in reality, but even then....who cares? It's a movie, not an actual documentary.)
The only unrealistic moments I noticed were when the main characters went rogue and stuck their noses where they didn't belong, I mean it could happen, but eh...I don't know. Because the main character in this movie is a loose cannon, and his fellow buddies are trying to keep him in line and they do it very realistically. Although I think the continuous "wild man" moves would get him suspended or thrown out. ( but hey, it's the desert and they are at war, people will lose it sometimes, not to mention their group is very small and usually aren't monitored heavily.)
But it's sort of a double edged sword, I think the whole "loose cannon" part of the main character makes this movie VERY funny at moments, I mean I was busting out laughing at how he seems to have a death wish several times in the movie! ( like while checking out a car bomb, he goes from dead serious, to out of nowhere just taking off his bomb suit, and just starts kicking at the car and getting physical when the thing is loaded with TONS of explosives, haha.)
It kind of reminded me of my buddy that was in Iraq and some of the crazy things he did like that(without the explosives), so there IS some reality to it per say. I think we all know people that sort of have a death wish in some way, shape or form.
This movie is LOADED with moments of suspense, and it really feels like time is moving slowly during these moments. It's not rushed or ruined by cheap thrills or stupid outcomes what so ever. I think it accurately gets one point across VERY well. In that, it depicts that deep fear or nervousness of sitting next to a bomb trying to remove the charge without being vaporized. Yet you see the main character being extremely calm like a bomb! (no phun intended, ha) It's sort of stressful yet funny how cocky he is during moments like those.
Then later on they may be caught in a small fire fight or something to that extent, so the movie isn't JUST about a bomb squad.
For instance, the sniper firefight scene, that was pretty neat. I won't go into details about it, but I sort of had a problem with how an AK-47 is a match for a Barrett .50 cal at long range. Obviously the 7.62x39 is fairly limited on accuracy and distance. Unless I mistook the AK for a Dragunov?
But other than that, no problems.
It's a great movie, not your typical war movie, this one is slower paced YET suspenseful the entire time just about. They pretty much just go on-call to bomb sites most of the movie, and there is action along the way or in between.
Good movie, 9 out of 10 for realisticness and originality and a different directing style for once!