The Hurt Locker

Grade: C+

Let’s all chip in and make a movie that takes place in Iraq - it’s a surefire beeline to the Oscars. Nominated for nine Academy Awards including Best Picture, and still I look forward to the Academy Awards every year.

The definition of insanity.

After about 15 minutes into this film, I stopped watching the movie and started counting the clichés. It’s an impressive list, if I must say so myself:

1. Maverick commander who everyone hates and contemplates killing but who ends up taking better care of his men than anyone anticipates.

2. Surprise attacks. And more surprise attacks. And more surprise attacks. Usually starting with someone being shot dead in surprise fashion.

3. Good guys being mistaken for bad guys.

4. Star cameos = death in one scene.

5. American commander letting Iraqi civilians die because he can.

6. Soldier removing his headset so he doesn’t have to follow instructions.

7. Ammo running out at the most inopportune moments.

8. The military therapist who’s never seen real action so can’t truly understand what the men go through. What do we think will happen to said doc when he finally joins his patient on a mission?

9. Jamming guns.

10. Pulsating, throbbing music, choppy camera editing.

11. Every other scene someone yelling “Put the mother fucking gun down!” Alternative: “Get down. Get the fuck down.”

12. “Days Left” in Bravo Company’s rotation flashing on the screen every 15 minutes or so.

13. Lines like, “If I’m gonna die, I wanna die comfortable.” Or “What’s the best way you go about disarming these things?” “The way you don’t die, sir.” Or “Kill that fucking asshole.” Or “He’s down. Good night. Thanks for playing.” Or “It’s real quiet. I don’t like it.” Or “You’re not good with people but you’re a hell of a warrior.” Or “I’m too old for this shit.”

14. Gun shells dropping to the ground in slow motion.

15. Finding a smoldering cigarette when entering an enemy layer, to signify they just left moments before.

16. Fight Club.

17. An officer befriending a little kid.

18. Carrying a dead child through the streets in Christlike fashion.

19. The call home to the wife. She picks up, somehow knowing it’s him. “Will?” “Will?” “Will?” Will hangs up, unable to speak.

20. Iraqis unable to speak English until a gun is put to their temples. Then they speak English.

21. “Apocalypse Now” fires raging in darkness scene.

22. Figuring out where the bad guys are hiding for no explicable reason whatsoever.

23. Music that sounds like a heartbeat.

24. Distraught soldier standing in the shower with all his clothes on.

25. The soldier unable to acclimate to home life.

The performances are universally solid, especially Jeremy Renner as an adrenaline addicted bomb expert. Everything else is merely adequate or expected. The film’s final moments are indeed painfully sad and haunting, but they deserve to be in a superior film. The fact that the story is based on a “fictional retelling” by a freelance journalist who wanted to tell of the “kinds of things that soldiers go through that you can't see on CNN” makes it all the more irritating for how false it all feels.

And the winner is…..I just know I’m gonna be pissed.

More movie info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0887912/