War Porn

Rating: 2/10 (4 February 2010)

This movie is war porn. You'll either get turned on if that is your thing or you get sick and bored. Heaven help you either way.
Shaking the camera around to disorient the viewer gets old after 5 minutes. That does not count as good editing or cinematography. The so-called 'tension' of defusing bombs becomes tedious at the 3rd try and never recovers.
The Iraqi people are 0% developed other than to be dangerous untrustworthy "hajis", effectively becoming 'the other' to the Americans. This might be used effectively to prove certain points about the experience of the protagonists, but here it just makes the main characters look like unsympathetic ignorant racists who are themselves extremely thinly developed.
There is not much point to this film. If the main idea is to show the insanity of Renner's character then this works on a cardboard thin level. But if this film is supposed to show a realistic portrait of the military experience in Iraq, then it only shows that experience to be morally bankrupt, utterly pointless and totally insane - and not even in a very realistic or worthwhile way.
Frankly it is shocking that this film would even be considered for any Oscar, much less 8? Screenplay? Editing? Cinematography? What on earth are you guys thinking? How far the sensibility and cultural landscape of America has slipped since 2003...If this is one of the best y'all think you can come up with then good luck with that.