Re: The Hurt Locker
Say what you want about the film, but I greatly enjoyed it. I was amped after pulling out the new Star Trek so I basically decided to go right into another movie that I had planned on seeing. In terms of Iraqi realism and duels between insurgent SVD's and contractors bearing SASR's, I would say that these things were just peripheral events that allowed your brain to consider all of the cats and dogs involved in a large play, and your brain needed to focus elsewhere for a minute here and there once the protagonist was back in his rack, pulling from a fifth and smoking a cig while cranking some heavy metal.
I was once certified with demo and was qualified as an assault breacher. The instructors at the latter school were top notch and most have been in the job this movie portrays for multiple tours. Despite being retired, quarterly I am required to attend a demo and IED briefing by one of the Corps' oldest demo men. We normally get to blow some charges, C-4, TNT, ring mains and such. I have always depended on EOD support and it has never let me down.
Again, these are peripheral issues that mean nothing.
To say that the scenes are unrealistic or that the plot was merely a bunch of actors in scenes that are spliced together is to miss the simple beauty of this film. In this regard, the analysis would be correct. I do not for a minute think that it was created to allow one to experience service in Iraq, even if it was marketed as such. It would be like thinking you were a soldier once, and young, just because you purchased a multi-spectral camouflage backpack and a scoped rifle.
The crux of this movie is that one man is willing to don a suit and walk with great purpose toward something so greatly more powerful than he, time and time again. It is as if he climbs into a casket and then waits a few minutes to see if he is allowed to live or the hatch will be nailed shut, forever. Rather than dwelling on the horrible finalness that could be, he uses deep focus to concentrate on the job he has volunteered to do. And the adrenaline rush is so much stronger than any that can be found in the humdrum nothing of a basic daily life, which he can no long cope with because of the simplicity perhaps…. The conclusion of a mission is success, and life, for him and others that he supports. Or, being instantly transformed into pulp. And so, the truly great scene, repeated often with dramatic effect, is 1 man very purposefully donning his suit and putting one foot in front of the other and taking that first step down a difficult road toward his destiny no matter how powerfully transforming, and transfiguring, it may become. And it did.
In my mind, the movie was powerful, no pun intended, because of what is not said. So, many that read this, hopefully, will see the questions and representation of manhood.
Whether you don a bomb suit, a vest of armor, an LEO badge, a fireman’s hat, a carpenter’s belt, a tool box, or the sometimes heavy mantle of being a father, knowing the increasing complexities and dangers of this world, that lone sergeant and his purposeful, slow walk toward his destiny represented your life in so very many ways.
The camera, vividly, and from behind, allows the thoughtful to take pause, and consider.