[HEADING=1]caffeine|[small]domble[/small][/HEADING]
[HEADING=1]The Hurt Locker[/HEADING]
[HEADING=3]Did this strike anyone else as a stupid name?[/HEADING]
Despite popular belief I do, in fact, have friends. And amongst these friends I am not known as a man who keeps up with current affairs. This comes from me not watching the news, or reading newspapers. Or actually knowing what day it is. To be absolutely honest, one of my only sources knowledge of the war in Iraq comes to me via the medium of video games.
As a result, my vision of war is painted in primary colours; Allied troops are all manly, bearded killing machines, the enemy have body armour made out of tin foil and if you get shot you can always hide in cover for a few seconds to liberally apply healing gel to your mangled anatomy. I?m not joking, I actually believe this.
Another window out of the rose-tinted wonderland of my naïve psyche is the war film, a genre that seems to be garnered with rewards in direct proportion to how real the film feels. You need only look at films like Ridley Scott?s Black Hawk Down, which was sprinkled with acclaim like confetti, or Clint Eastwood?s Letters to Iwo Jima ? if this pattern for realism holds then an Oscar will have to be created for Best Detailing of a Humvee in a Three Hour Period with a Toothbrush.
A clumsy, obvious segue though it may be, I brought up the Oscars because The Hurt Locker is an extremely important film when it comes to the Academy Awards. You see director Kathryn Bigelow managed to scoop the statue for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Editing, Best Sound, Best Sound Editing (the difference I?ve yet to fathom) and Best Writing Directly to Screen. The film is historic because it makes Bigelow the very first female director in history to win the Best Director gong.
Now that?s good, but what makes it juicy is that it stole the award away from James Cameron's Avatar, the SciFi monolith released at the back end of last year, and the bookie?s favourite to win. What makes that piece of information fantabulosagasmic[footnote]I've been waiting a long time to use that word in something.[/footnote] is that Bigelow is Cameron?s ex-wife, and if that doesn?t bring a smile to every divorcee in the world then, frankly, I don?t know what will.
Now certain people, I believe they?re called ?nerds?, have had an issue with this.
They say that the SciFi and Fantasy genres always get snubbed at the Oscars, and that this was a complete lack of surprise. Admittedly they have a point, bearing in mind that The Lord of the Rings only won its 13 Oscars on the final, and some say weakest, film.
So let?s look at The Hurt Locker, and see if it was an award well earned or simply Academy Award snobbery that denied Avatar.
[img width]http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/090615/Must-List/hurt-locker_l.jpg[/img][HEADING=2]"Battle is a potent and lethal addiction,[/HEADING][HEADING=1]for war is a drug."[/HEADING]
[HEADING=3]You must be a terrible writer if you have to validate your work by using other peoples' quotes.
... Oh, wait.[/HEADING]
A war film that holds any pretence to realism must have respectful characters. No matter what political views a director may or may not have, the people being portrayed have to be shown the true dignity and respect they deserve.
Oh don?t get me wrong, this isn?t because Hollywood has any trace of humanity in it, it?s because it might have a detrimental effect on ticket sales if they are shown otherwise. It?s a very important aspect to the film and, in this aspect at least, Hurt Locker delivers.
The film circles Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner ? S.W.A.T., 28 Weeks Later) like a hawk, following the bomb disposal expert?s every move through his day to day life. We see him blowing off steam with comrades, keeping sharp through training and exercise and defying death with nothing but a pair of pliers and a bodysuit.
All well and good, but he has his flaws. He?s human; He drinks milk straight out of the bottle, he forgets to put the toilet seat down and, oh yeah, he?s a stone cold, adrenalin junkie nutcase.
James is portrayed as addiction incarnate, a man willing to do whatever it takes to get his particular brand of high, and true to any addict he doesn?t care what cost it comes at ? be it himself or his team.
The truth is that Sgt James is more of a threat to his friends than the bombs he takes such pride in disarming. His sheer recklessness in the face of certain death is chilling to behold, and it makes for a truly fascinating character.
Seeing someone flirt with disaster every few minutes keeps you on the edge of your seat, and Renner, to his unending credit, truly sells it every second he?s on screen. Whether he?s fiddling about with a car bomb after shedding his bomb suit (?if I?m gonna? die, I?m gonna? die comfortable?) you truly do believe that he?s just searching for the next level of danger. In certain scenes it?s like he?s not even human, like he?s imitating emotions that he clearly doesn?t understand ? seeing a man mask his insane quest for thrills with unsettling enthusiasm is disquieting to say the least.
It really is knockout stuff; no mean feat from a guy looks like a really squashed version of Nathan Fillion.
James, the giggling sociopath that he is, evokes great fear from his squad mates, almost to the point where any halfway sensible people would have slapped some self preservation qualities upside his carpet-chewingly insane head.
Amongst these people are Anthony Mackie (Eagle Eye, Half Nelson) as Sergeant JT Sanborn and Brian Geraghty (Jarhead, Krews) as Specialist Owen Eldridge. Now as you might have guessed, this film really just focusses on Sgt James, so the other two squad mates are really put to the back in terms of characterisation, almost to the point where Eldridge might as well have said "Hi, my name is Owen. I'm your naïve, deer-like young soldier who is probably going to kiss a bullet at some point during the second act. Oh, and this is Sandborn - he'll be your gruff, world-weary type who is sick of this damn war and wants to go home."
Both actors turn in good performances, and make great use of what little character they have to work with. Now usually I'd be more than happy to beat the film to death with my criticism stick for not giving the rest of the cast enough room to breath, but in this case it actually works pretty well, and really highlights just how batshit loco James truly is.
Oh, Ralph "I'll pronounce your name as it's fucking spelled, thank you so much" Fiennes pops in for a proverbial cup of tea in a brief cameo, as does Guy "Weren't you in Neighbours at one point?" Pierce. While they don't get an awful lot of screen time, both are a pleasure to watch.
[HEADING=2]"Every time you suit up, it's life or death...[/HEADING]
[HEADING=1]You do recognise that don't you?"[/HEADING][HEADING=3]Wow, that took some paraphrasing.[/HEADING]
We begin the film by being introduced to a group of soldiers wearing Digital Camouflage (thank you Modern Warfare II) disarming an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) with the help of Guy Pierce (Sgt Matt Thompson... I'll stop using brackets now). We see their procedures, their worries, and it mostly outlines the entire focus of the movie: Tension.
Bigelow has created a world wherein anything and everything is a danger, from an unknown street to something as simple as a mobile phone. With these tools she crafts a thick atmosphere, a place that has no end of mood and a silky sense of foreboding shrouding every scene... In short, a film that is so boring it took me two attempts to watch it.
The piece is a case study on the subject of tension, and I'm not sure if anyone told the director this, but tension is the art of nothing happening. If you have a whole film of suspense, then you have a whole lot of nothing actually going on.
Don't get me wrong, the first twenty minutes or so are truly nerve shredding. Seeing Renner strut down a street in full bomb kevlar before unearthing an entire pile of IEDs is like having exhilaration distilled, put into a syringe and jammed into your kneecaps, but very soon you realise that the film no longer has the opportunity to set up another lead, and as stated before, the rest of the cast are pushed aside to fully outline James' insanity in the field. As a result you just stop caring about anything that's going on because there just isn't any danger for the character you do care about, and that's when you notice that all you are watching is somebody wielding a pair of wire clippers very slowly.
It also doesn't have much in the way of an over arching storyline - things just kind of, well, happen. The film seems to have a fetish for the Real, and most of the scenes are filmed in a fake documentary style, complete with wiggly camera and grainy images. But the thing is that if you're going for a real life film then you have to realise that Sgt James wouldn't be let within a country mile of an explosive device, mainly because he's quite clearly a raving Bedlamite.
Suffice to say, the film meanders about somewhat, so the very best parts actually come from Renner himself.
In William James, he has a truly intriguing character that he effortlessly brings to life with sweaty, grit-filled aplomb. It's a shame, really, that such a ripe character was deployed for a film with actually quite little for him to do. More enjoyment can be gleaned from him talking about the trophies he has kept from bombs or seeing him take male bonding a step too far than any actual work he does in the field.
Although Bigelow, it has to be said, has a great talent for putting you in the scene.
Her use of sound is breathtaking, sometimes using only the panicked, echoing breaths inside the bomb suit to amazing effect.
She also picks up on little details that add an extra little something to the proceedings, like focussing on a wounded cat limping around, or how the natives are slowly becoming more and more Americanised. This culminates in Bigelow showing us the descent of a single sniper rifle bullet at it glides to the floor, billowing dust all around. While it may sound cool, it's actually the most pretentious thing I've ever witnessed on celluloid - and I've seen Natural Born Killers. Twice.
Don't ask.
[img width]http://moviesmedia.ign.com/movies/image/article/993/993506/the-hurt-locker-20090610112937766_640w.jpg[/img][HEADING=2]"What's the best way to disarm a bomb?"[/HEADING]
[HEADING=1]"The way you don't die, sir."[/HEADING][HEADING=3]I was watching a show about bomb disposal experts for the police once.
Their motto was "we take a lickin' if it keeps on tickin.'"[/HEADING]
The Verdict? While Jeremy Renner does give an absolute tour de force performance, he's a lot like Keanu Reeves in The Watcher; Quite possibly the greatest role of his career, but in a movie that doesn't in any way live up to it.
The fact is that the very concept of the film is flawed, it mulls around too much, and because of the theme the pacing is pretty much non-existent.
Whether or not you enjoy the piece hinges on how much you love the genre, because if you're willing to sit out a few boring patches then you might be greeted with an enjoyable experience - but more likely you'll be too busy pointing out the foibles within the film to notice.
The strangest thing is that because the film was garnished with so many Oscars, I really had higher expectations for it. If it had been even slightly less praised I would have been a lot less disappointed.
So did Oscar snobbery rob Avatar?
Well if it did, they blew their noses off to spite their faces.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Can't sleep? Me either.
Film: Pretty Woman [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.183238-Caffeine-Pretty-Woman] / The Haunting in Connecticut [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.181389-Caffeine-The-Haunting-in-Connecticut] / The Watchmen [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.180241-Caffeine-The-Watchmen-and-a-few-words-on-the-art-of-Adaptation] / The Men Who Stare at Goats [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.170886-Caffeine-The-Men-Who-Stare-at-Goats-25th-Review] / In the Loop [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.165442] / Moon [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.162973] / Pulp Fiction [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.156647] / Night Watch [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.154980] / X-Men Origins: Wolverine [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.153507] / The Departed [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.149527] / Star Trek 2009 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.149058#3470961] / A review of Love Happens (Without seeing it first) [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.148846#3460365] / Inglourious Basterds [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.147977#3420043] / Fight Club Essay [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.147655#3403751] / District 9 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.147097#3373011] / The Crow 4: Wicked Prayer [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.137348#3089948]
Game: Modern Warfare II, and the making of Caffeine [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.161600] / Final Fantasy Double Feature [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.158465] / Resident Evil 4 Retrospective [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.148447#3440710] / Mass Effect [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.145571#3296970] / Final Fantasy: Dissidea [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.144913#3266704] / Metal Gear Solid Twin Snakes [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.140353#3149506] / Far Cry 2 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.139317#3129015] / Street Fighter IV [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.136868#3079685]
Other: The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z double feature [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.169416] / A Review of Society, via Call of Duty 4 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.151891] / A review of My Cat [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/326.146281#3332788]
