`The Hurt Locker`

     “The Hurt Locker” turned out to be the first good movie about the war I’ve seen.

     The Hurt Locker is a 2008 American award-winning war thriller directed by Kathryn Bigelow. Shot on location in Jordan, the film is based on recently declassified information about a U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) (bomb squad) team in present day Iraq. The Hurt Locker is written by Mark Boal, a freelance writer who was embedded with a bomb squad.

     The plot of the film:In Iraq, a U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit is forced to play a dangerous game of cat and mouse in the chaos of war in a city where everyone is a potential enemy and every object could be a deadly bomb. Jeremy Renner plays the leader of the EOD team, as he contends with not only defusing bombs in the backdrop of a war, but also the psychological and emotional strain that it inflicts.

     Above all, this is an Iraq movie with a modest agenda and no obvious political views. That, more than anything else, is the source of its strength. Because the filmmaker, Kathryn Bigelow, is a veteran action-movie director, and her purpose is entertainment and character development, the Iraq war portrayed here is allowed to be a war, not a blank screen for the grandiose projections of a self-important auteur (like Brian De Palma, who announced that his intention in making his pretentious snuff film “Redacted” was to force the public to end the war). “The Hurt Locker” isn’t an Iraq movie—it’s a war movie, assuming its place in the long trail of that good-bad genre going back to John Wayne and Ernie Pyle.

Perhaps, with the departure of the Bush Administration, the withdrawal of American combat units from Iraqi cities, the attention of the new President shifted to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran, and the public worried about jobs and houses, Iraq can start to become a real war, not a symbol of all-consuming evil—the subject of movies that try to be good movies rather than major statements. And perhaps audiences will want to see them.

     You can get more information here:link 1,link 2.

July 12, 2009  Author:   Posted in: Hot Films

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.