Burdened By The Oscar?

Rating: 8/10 (15 March 2010)

Imagine if you had seen THE HURT LOCKER on a rainy day when you had not even planned to see a movie; e.g., your camping trip was ruined and THL was the only thing starting without a long wait. Imagine you'd heard nothing of the film, let alone that it'd won the Oscar for Best Picture.
You'd probably think it was a well filmed, great scripted movie with guts to go on location. You'd think that you'd just seen some (relatively) fresh faces who did a great job pulling off first class suspense, edge-of-your-seat excitement and realistic portrayals of human reaction. And you may feel (rightly or not) that you now know something new about the Iraq War.
Certainly you'd leave the theater reaffirmed that a gazillion dollars need not be spent to make a great piece of entertainment. But the Oscar?
My problem is that THL began to feel very episodic; e.g., as if we were offered one adventure after another without effort - or intent for that matter - to pull the story or characters along. Indeed I still don't know these three guys well, if at all. The movie spoon fed us the "war as addiction" theme; Subtle it was not.
But sometimes I (or you, or many/most of us) are in the mood for a fast ride and THL sure delivers. I'm almost sorry it won the statue. I want to remember THL as a darker horse.