The Hurt Locker

Director : Kathryn Bigelow
Starring : Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes
2008

I watched this movie back to back with Precious. Not exactly the same genres. I had different feelings about each before I saw them too. As i said before, I could have cared less about Precious before seeing it and it was great. The Hurt Locker was a movie I have wanted to see for forever. It has generated the most Oscar buzz this month, its a war movie so I'm into it already, and Guy Pearce is in it. Problem is the movie didn't live up to the hype, at least not for me. That doesn't mean I didn't like the movie. It's just a lot like the Hangover. Everyone that had seen it before me loved it, thought it was hilarious, and wouldn't stop talking about it. Was the Hangover a funny movie? Of course. Was it the funniest movie I have ever seen? I'm not sure it's even in my top 25.

I should have know that I was going to be let down when Guy Pearce was killed off in the first scene. I like Guy Pearce and would like to take a minute to break down his career. He did a few things like L.A. Confidential, everything was going good then BAM Memento. Great movie, great acting, great everything. Pearce is looking to be a break out star but then his next to movies turn out to be terrible. The Time Machine and Count of Monte Cristo are already great classic stories, how can you ruin them? I'm not saying it's his fault, I don't know what happened but no more starring roles in big budget movies. He was in the proposition which is really good but no one has heard of. Now I guess he is playing minor roles in good movies like The Hurt Locker and the Road. Hopefully he will get another lead role because I want to see him do another movie. No homo.

Back to the movie. Guy Pearce is killed in Iraq while trying to diffuse a bomb. In comes our main character to replace him, Will James. He is a hot shot bomb diffuser and instantly clashes with his second in command, JT Sanborn because he doesn't follow proper protocol. That becomes the main conflict in this movie, not the war in Iraq, not suicide bombers or children dying, it's a hot shot sergeant who wants to rush into battle while his number 2 wants to do things by the book. Ok, I guess you have to find something new to do and that was their niche.

The movie is just the two of them along with another guy traveling bomb site to bomb site, trying to stop things from blowing up. You would think there might be a big dramatic ending where they disarm the bomb of all bombs but nothing like that really happened. I was cool with that too. This movie left off with a lot of loose ends though. They don't find anyone responsible for the bombs, James and Sanborn fight, then are friends, then fight again but you never get the feeling that they hash things out. Sanborn's final scene ends with him crying and saying he has nothing. James realizes he has nothing and the bombs are the only thing that matters to him. I guess that was the directors vision to show how the war is. These hidden message's in war movies are always tricky.

Rating : 3.5 stars. Movie was solid and I guess pays the penalty of being over hyped to me. Still, the Hurt Locker only semi-delivered. Renner does a good job but his character had no direction, he was all over the place. His final 3 scenes were set up beautifully for Bigelow to define his character but all we are left with are his usual "I just don't know's". Movie was really lacking a finishing punch. One thing it did do really well was actually make me thing of the on screen quote shown after the opening credits. That was the message of the film and I didn't think about it again until the last 5 seconds of the film. That was cool.

Best Scene : The sniper shoot out. Not because of the fact that people shooting guns at each other from far away was cool but that it was the first time that the three soldiers seemed to bond. It was James' characters strongest moment. It was cool. Of course they destroyed all the bonding in the next few scenes but hey whatever, this was a good one.

Quotes : "There's enough bang in there to blow us all to Jesus. If I'm gonna die, I want to die comfortable."

"This box is full of stuff that almost kill me."

The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug.

"You love playing with that. You love playing with all your stuffed animals. You love your Mommy, your Daddy. You love your pajamas. You love everything, don't ya? Yea. But you know what, buddy? As you get older... some of the things you love might not seem so special anymore. Like your Jack-in-a-Box. Maybe you'll realize it's just a piece of tin and a stuffed animal. And then you forget the few things you really love. And by the time you get to my age, maybe it's only one or two things. With me, I think it's one."

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Trailer