Comments on: Review: ‘The Hurt Locker’

By: NickV3

NickV3 — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:23:55 +0000

Sheesh, I didn't know that about Troy. Double yuck.

While filmmakers are often obviously trying to have it both ways with the audience, I think many conservatives gave certain movies a pass because they really want a movie about this conflict that depicts what conservatives know about the military (that it represents America's finest men and women) and our sense of life about America.

Those of us who won't drop aside the relevant simply because it is inconvenient and who won't allow technical skill to trump values. . . well we're still waiting.

By: El_Gordo

El_Gordo — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:43:38 +0000

Strangely, no one puts a disclaimer in front of the movie: "What you are about to see is incidental"

How can the setting be incidental – and the movie "apolitical" – when the war is still going on and we have our people still in the field? This isn´t Thermopylae or the Trojan war (paradoxically, the German director of "Troy" went out of his way to draw parallels between that war and the "war based on lies" that Bush started. And "300" received political interpretations on both sides of the spectrum. So THAT was about the current war but THIS is not?)

Finally, why am I supposed to be happy that after a string of antiwar movies the best we can get is an allegedly "apolitical" one? Perhaps I want to see a political Iraq war movie! It is nothing but an admission that a serious, truthful movie about Iraq would automatically transport the wrong kind of politics and can therefore never get made. It´s either dreck of the "Redacted" type or "Backdraft with Bombs".

By: Hucbald

Hucbald — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 13:22:37 +0000

Thanks for the excellent review. I'll put it on my to-watch list.

Cliff Clavin/

"Actually Mike, alligators can't get rabies. Rabies is a disease that only mammals and marsupials can contract."

/Cliff Clavin

By: NickV3

NickV3 — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:49:02 +0000

Very well said. There seem to be two schools of thought on this issue: some people think the setting and context can be incidental to the story and others do not. (I fall into the latter category.) Given the amount of attention that filmmakers spend on details, it seems cheap and dishonest to ask the viewer to consider the fact that the movie takes place not only during a war but within a war, is incidental. Even more so, the characters participate in it. "Oh but it's not about that." That's a rather lame assertion. Again, well said, and your analogy to "Apocalypse Now" is an especially apt observation.

By: El_Gordo

El_Gordo — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:49:22 +0000

It is not about Iraq? Isn´t that another way of admitting that it would be pretty flawed if it were about the ongoing conflict it is set it? I call that the "Apocalypse Now" excuse. Sure, "Apocalyse Now" is a fine movie. But it would be nice to see at least one intelligent movie about this war. I take it "The Hurt Locker" is not that movie.

I´d also like to think that it would not have occurred to anyone to make that excuse for a WW2 movie released during the war or for at least a decade after its end. They didn´t need to because the movies did not make our soldiers look like immature maniacs.

By: Aleric

Aleric — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:06:32 +0000

Blue Steel was boring and uninteresting, Point Break was so much crap and unrealistic that it made cops look like jokes. So now the same director has come out with a movie about a solider who is not accurate to the people or the conflict in Iraq. So technically it is this movie but just in Iraq. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109303/

By: James_S

James_S — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:52:43 +0000

There happens to be an article that answers your question.

http://armylive.dodlive.mil/index.php/2009/07/eod...

To summarize what it seems the soldiers are saying in the article: The movie was good, but it does not portray the U.S. Soldiers as they are.

By: CatsAreGods

CatsAreGods — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 07:01:36 +0000

I certainly hope this isn't gonna be like Deer Hunter…

By: maatkare

maatkare — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 06:06:33 +0000

I got the sense that the main guy was, not necessarily that _every_ demolition guy was. One guy doesn't stand for the entire profession, any more than I think Edie Falco's Nurse Jackie exemplifies the way _all_ nurses behave. (Thank God)

By: maatkare

maatkare — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 05:30:43 +0000

I thought it was excellent. Bigelow specifically set it in 2004 when things were more volatile, and at least for me–with no military connections, knowledge or experience–the sense of tension in the streets when troops are faced with split-second judgement calls that are all intense matters of life and death came across powerfully. I already had admiration for our guys; this just cemented that I can't imagine the courage it takes to do what they do.