dvd review: The Hurt Locker

-

The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, is the story of a U.S. bomb squad in Baghdad in 2004. It's a raw, honest war movie. It's hard to watch at times because it's intense. 


It's very, very good, but it is not quite great. Is it worth seeing? Yes, I think it illuminates the war in a way still photos, news footage and articles cannot. It's important to have a richer understanding of war and this war. Each scene opens with a graphic of the number of days the unit has left on their tour. What keeps this movie from being great as a movie is the lack of transcendence. Much of the film feels like a documentary, which is fine. When a story makes an appearance, it feels out of line with the rest of the movie. Perhaps there's too much side story or perhaps there's not enough. Either way, it was a nice break from the constant stress and tension, but it didn't quite work for me.


See this movie. It's not easy to watch, and at times it reminded me of a modern Saving Private Ryan. It's not a movie I'll want to watch again, but I am glad I saw it.There's some fantastic acting, and Kathryn Bigelow is a very talented director.


Awards: It's nominated for two Golden Globes, Best Picture (Drama) and Best Director


Rating: 4.25 stars (out of 5)
Running time: 130 minutes
Release: it's on dvd, and you can buy it in Blu-Ray too
Source: Netflix


As an Amazon Associate, I will receive a small commission if you make a purchase through the above links. So far I've made 28 cents! Thank you!

Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 16, 2010 at 9:23 AM

    It was an ok movie but hardly the entertainment value I personally wanted in a war film. No way does it come close to saving private ryan or we were soldiers or platoon etc.. I sorta want about 40% of my money back. Sorry!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for taking the time to comment. Happy reading!

Popular posts from this blog

book review: A Dangerous Place by Jacqueline Winspear

-
Image
The backstory: A Dangerous Place  is the eleventh historical mystery featuring Maisie Dobbs. My reviews of the other eleven (plus Winspear's stand alone historical novel) are in my Book Review Database . The basics: Set four years after the last Maisie Dobbs novel, Leaving Everything Most Loved , in A Dangerous Place , we meet up with Maisie in Gibraltar in 1927 during the Spanish Civil War. She gets off her England-bound ship in Gibraltar because she's not quite ready to return. Note: this review contains spoilers about what happened in those four years of Maisie's life between books, all of which are revealed in this novel's first thirty pages.  My thoughts: Sunday I wrote about the Maisie Mail I received. These postcards appear in the book itself, along with many others. After setting the stage in Gibraltar in the opening pages (Maisie stumbles upon a dead body), Winspear recounts the last four years of Maisie's life in the form of postcards, letters, an...
Read more

book review: Run by Ann Patchett

-
Image
The backstory: After loving State of Wonder  ( my review ), I set out to read all of Ann Patchett's books. The basics: Run  is the story of the Doyle family: Bernard, an Irish Catholic ex-mayor of Boston, his deceased wife Bernadette, their adult son Sullivan, and their two adopted college ages sons, Tip and Teddy, who are biological brothers. My thoughts: I'm beginning to think Ann Patchett is my soul sister. Her writing reaches me deeply, and I've adored everything she's written. It was a special treat to read Run , the novel of hers I knew the least about going in. Although I had the framework of two of her novels and one memoir, I didn't know what to expect. Run  isn't as universally loved as some of her other works, so I was particularly curious to see how it measured up. Admittedly, Run  started off slowly for me. It took two chapters to really get into the heart of the story, but once it happened, I was hooked. One of the things I love most about ...
Read more

book review: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson

-
Image
The backstory: Gilead  won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005, the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2004, and was longlisted for the Orange Prize in 2006. The basics: As Rev. Ames nears the end of his life in the 1950's, he begins a letter to his young son because Ames realizes his son is too young to really know him. Gilead  is that letter. My thoughts: Gilead  is a novel I'm been meaning to read for years. It's a character-driven, Midwestern narrative by one of our best contemporary writers. It should be a novel I love, yet I struggled to finish it and admit I was wowed by neither the story nor the writing. Gilead  seemed almost stream-of-consciousness at first. I appreciated that Robinson jumped right in: this novel is a letter from father to son; the reader's ignorance of these two characters is not the focus. As the novel progressed, more details began to be filled in, and the reader begins to understand the characters, setting and purpose. I enjoyed the ...
Read more