The Hurt Locker (2008)
This deployment won’t really blow you away.
Presentation:
If you wanted a new perspective on war, this films gives it to us through the eyes of an army bomb squad. Jeremy Renner gives us a tense performance as he defuses bombs in extremely dangerous scenarios. Unfortunately, the film didn’t adequately present the risk he takes with each encounter as I wasn’t convinced of any real danger or gravitas in each assignment. Perhaps some audiences may enjoy a more realistic docudrama style war film, but I felt it should have committed more heavily into its tone or message.
Conclusion:
As one of the best films on the Iraq War, it’s pretty mediocre as far as war films go compared to the high bar set by much more epic wars. It’s just not very exciting and felt flat to me, but for those that actually went to war this could be an extremely immersive experience. It’s definitely an original approach to the genre enabled by the weapons of modern warfare, but for a film not even based on a specific person or true story they could have took more creative liberties as opposed to the safe script we got.
Recommendations
When a war movie is so brutal it feels like a reenactment.