Some tension, no story

Rating: 5/10 (10 March 2010)

I had this movie on my "virtual shelf" for a long time and was meaning to watch it after hearing all the rave reviews, but somehow eventually only got to view it after the Oscar. And it was an ever bigger disappointment for it.
Kathryn Bigelow has directed a no-nonsense film here which is straightforward, tense and feels realistic(which, reading war veterans' reviews, it really isn't, but hey, it's Hollywood after all). The bomb defusal and sniping scenes, with the help of some shakycam and a great score, create a lot of tension, and along with the glimpses of life within a soldier's camp can really suck you into this grim world. I actually felt worse and worse watching this movie partly because of this, which might be a good thing in this case. (The other part though is unforgivable - but see the fourth indent for that.)
It has its clear imperfections - what's a soldier doing hitting a superior with so little reason? How do you hit a running target with a sniper rifle? How many Iraqis would put a bomb inside a dead body? These are the sorts of unreal moments that even the Hollywood-trained viewer can hardly tolerate.
But the really bad thing is the total lack of story here. The Hurt Locker plays like a fake documentary, portraying war just for the sake of portraying war and nothing else. What really happens in the film? Think about it. Someone tries to defuse a bomb and gets blown up. Army camp scene. Someone successfully defuses a bomb. Army camp scene. Go back to Step 1.
In the end, you are left empty-handed. What was the film trying to say? Nothing. It's hard to be a soldier, and even harder if you have an estranged ex-wife at home. Right. Is that all? Did it give you anything to take with? Any moral conclusions, anything? No.
I am puzzled by all the people calling The Hurt Locker "near-perfect" and "brilliant" and such. It is very, very far from perfect and the zero-story attitude is easy to see from early on. Editing is good, cinematography is good, sounds are great, but The Hurt Locker is just the sum of its parts, nothing more. And there aren't too many parts here to put together.