The Hurt Locker

If this thing is going to win the Best Picture award in a month or two, then I'm all for it.

Of course, that's because its main competition is Avatar and Up In The Air, the latter I haven't seen, and the former I'm not particularly crazy about. I'd be all up for an Inglourious Basterds win, but that's not going to happen, so forget about that.

At the same time, I can't really decide whether this is an amazing work, with tense action at its best... or if it's just, you know, impressive.

The movie doesn't really have the most developed of plots. The gist of it is that a bomb diffusion unit has about 40 days left in their tour of Iraq, and a wild and charismatic soldier becomes their new leader and immediately starts inserting them into unnecessarily risky situations. And that's about it. I mean, I wasn't expecting it to be story driven or anything, but I also kind of wanted more... at some point I began to lose interest right about when it went from "action sequences about dude putting his crew at risk" to "action sequences about the psychological mindset of soldiers". Not that the execution of the latter fell *completely* flat, it's just that grim, realistic sequences after grim, realistic sequences begin to take its toll over the course of an 130 minute film.

But hey, those sequences? Pretty f'n impressive. I forget the name of the character played by Jeremy Renner (who's pretty amazing in this, as is Anthony Mackie as the soldier who objects most vehemently to Renner's antics... the other guy was kind of annoying, but oh well), but he makes it all work. I mean, you know that when they go to disable a bomb, that they're not going to get blown into pieces or anything, but watching Renner carefully tiptoe the line between recklessness and skill keeps you riveted nonetheless.

Another thing going for it is how refreshingly apolitical it seems. Of course, it doesn't particularly make war look terribly great and smashing and crap, but it's not hitting you over the head with any sort of "give peace a chance, Americans learn to love the Iraqis" message either. You're most decidedly supposed to cheer for the Americans here. Which might just be because you're watching a film where they're the main characters, but also because the film depicts the enemy as this unpredictable force that might come at any angle, meaning that any random person on the street just *might* be who you're up against.

And as I said before, the film takes a turn around the middle into an examination of the psychological impact of war on its participants. The quote at the beginning of the film harps on a bit that states that "war is a drug," which I guess might be true. I sort of took it more as people straddling the precipice of life and death, and often being the deciding factor in the lives of countless people, and how the absolute finality of these situations makes everything seem pointless (spoiler: hence, at the end of the film, the reason Renner can't choose a cereal: there are no consequences in picking between Lucky Charms and Frosted Flakes). I sort of felt like the film was reaching at points with its honing in on that "war=drug" slant by making Renner begin to harbor doubts about his adrenaline seeking ways, but not to the point of distraction.

Overall, it's a solid war flick, one that makes for gripping, realistic suspense by focusing in on the terror of what one wrong move might bring. Perhaps I'm not buying it as "best movie of the year" as I've seen plenty of other scribes deem it, but you know. Whatever.

ALSO: I haven't been following the Oscar season as much as I have the past few years, but here's what I'd like to see:

-Apparently it's between The Hurt Locker, Avatar and Up In The Air for Best Picture. Anything but Avatar.
-I'd like to see a few more acting nominations for Inglourious Basterds than just Christoph Waltz (who should win, for the record). Like Melanie Laurent in the Best Actress category (cause I don't want to see any of the films the leading contenders are in, honestly.)
-Fantastic Mr. Fox WINNING Best Animated Feature. Award Up the Best Pic nomination for Pixar's continued quality, award Fox the Best Animated Feature for being the best. That is all.
-Star Trek and A Serious Man can sneak into the Best Pic category and I would be OK with that. Heck, give them a few more nominations and I'd be more than happy.
-The whole "ten best pic nominees" seems kind of pointless now, since the films that would be contending for the top five seem a lot more diverse than last year's field (which sucked terribly, by the way... although I still wouldn't have given The Dark Knight a spot)