I just saw The Hurt Locker.
Wow.
This movie is fucking awful. I am both bamboozled and appalled that it is receiving such praise from critics.
Now, I have never been in, nor do I have any desire to ever be in any branch of the military, so I'm not going to pretend that the idiotically unrealistic portrayal of both military behavior and tactics bothers me. (After all, I have played hours of Military-themed video games where I'm Rambo-ing the shit out of entire legions of terrorists in a supposedly "realistic" game without complaint.) All I will say on the subject is that the military community is extremely upset with this movie, and for good reason (scroll down to the user reviews on metacritic for proof of that.)
So besides the fact that the entire movie is a shameful glamorization of military life, and that the whole theme of the movie is that "War is a fuggin' adrenaline rush, man!" the movie is an utter failure on about every other level. Even the most basic cinematography and editing techniques are completely ignored, to ill effect.
But before I get to that, I'll start where every movie starts, with the script.
It is laughable.
Mark Boal's screenplay is the most cliche-ridden, contradictory, and horrifically written story I have ever bared witness to from a film receiving such critical plaudits. It almost, ALMOST, knocks Crash off the pedestal as the worst written film to receive an Oscar nomination. And that is saying something. Because Crash is freaking terrible.
The characters and their decisions are positively moronic. Ignoring the thousands of breaches of military protocol, their actions simply make no sense. Why would a group of trained soldiers, when being fired at from enemy snipers SEVERAL HUNDRED YARDS AWAY stand out in the open and blindly return fire at nothing? It just makes no sense. It's like that seen in Predator.
This actually happens in The Hurt Locker. Except in the desert. And the movie ISN'T supposed to be an overblown 80s action movie.
The characters themselves are the stuff of every war movie you've ever seen. You've got the take-no-bullshit guy, the renegade, death-wish-having guy, and the whiny, sentimental guy. These are literally the same characters you've seen in every terrible war movie. Ever. There are multiple times in the movie where take-no-bullshit guy goes up to death-wish guy, jabs a finger in his chest, and says something to the effect of "You're fuckin' reckless, man!" and whiny guy chimes in with, "You're gonna get us all killed, man!"
People get punched in the face for turning their radios off, soldiers spend their down time getting drunk and having stomach-punching competitions (that, naturally, turn into knife fights), and people get bemoaned for getting a teammate hurt "Just to get their fuckin' adrenaline rush, man!" Nope. Scratch that last one. They don't get their teammates hurt. THEY ACTUALLY SHOOT THEM. Which, from my understanding, is generally a punishable offense. Not in The Hurt Locker (or if you're the vice-president. HEYO!).
Oh, I forgot to mention the guy that asks to come out on his first mission with the main characters. Guess what happens to him.
The Hurt Locker is the type of movie that likes to add words like, "Dick," "Bitch," and "Fuckin" into sentences of dialogue to achieve that "gritty, military-feel." The result just makes the characters come off like fourth graders trying to sound cool.
On top of that, the things they're saying are just dumb. People speak in phrases; half-baked metaphors that end up sounding like spoken intros to rap-songs. "It's life or death out here, man. Every time we go out there we roll the dice."
Roll the dice? REALLY? That's the best you've got?
Luckily, the film is saved from utter oblivion by fantastic performances in the leading roles, Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie in particular. They do everything they possibly can with the script they have, so much so that you don't notice the idiotic nature of the things they say until a couple of seconds after they say it.
You get one of those... "Wait. Did he really just say 'I'm down to get in some trouble'? Oh god." moments.
Director Kathryn Bigelow deserves some of the praise for the overall quality of the performances. That said, she deserves just as much blame for the puzzling cinematography and editing decisions.
The film goes for Paul Greengrass's, shaky-camera, ultra-realistic look, even going so far as to use the same director of photography as Greengrass's United 93, Barry Ackroyd. Unfortunately, Ackroyd is not able to capture the same magic he had working with Greengrass. The shaking camera is so frequently overdone, that it becomes hard to focus on the screen and more headache-inducing than looking at the out of focus areas in a 3d movie.
But that is not my biggest complaint. That honor goes to the camera blocking, which is so horrendous that it is next to impossible to determine where characters are in relation to each other, what they may be looking at, completely ruining any illusion of tension. I was spending these supposedly tense scenes with an internal monologue something like this:
"OH FUCK! That is a huge bomb in that car! So what's the plan? Okay, no-bullshit-taking guy is going to cover death-wish guy from the roof. Sentimental guy is going to kind of stand out in the open for some reason. Death-wish guy is going in to defuse the bomb. Wait. Where the hell is take-no-bullshit guy? Yes, I can see that he is on a roof. What roof though? How can he clearly see the entire scene, but not the anonymous Arab dude with a camera that sentimental guy is freaking out about? Wait. How the hell can sentimental guy even see camera-dude? He appears to be several blocks away. Oh. What? Now take-no-bullshit guy has spotted three suspicious looking guys in a tower approximately a mile and a half away. Okay. These guys must have Elf Eyes."
On top of mind-boggling-bad camera-work, the editing is unforgivable. I'm sorry. Is this Operation Condor? Is this Ong-Bak: the Thai Warrior?
No?
Then why the HELL are you showing slo-mo replays of explosions? Oh wait. You're not. You are simply over-lapping action when cutting between angles. What is wrong with you? Have you never edited a movie before? That is probably the worst decision you could make when trying to make an "ultra-realistic" atmosphere.
And quick note to the director, cinematographer and editor: You cannot cut from a low angle of a character looking down to a down angle of that same character walking through a door. What this does is make it appear as though the character were looking down at a miniature version of themselves walking through that door. It disorients the audience, and reminds them that they are watching a movie.
Woo. In the first draft, that last paragraph was in all caps. I cut it down, because it seemed a little much. I just can't stand stuff like that. Especially not when a steadycam shot tracking the character through the door would have been a much better way to reveal what was behind that door. So frustrating.
I could go on and on and on about things this movies utterly fails at. But I won't. I think my feelings on it are quite clear. I fully appreciate that I came off like a complete film-snob-douche. But I couldn't resist. If you want to prove me wrong, get at me.
Mostly I was so upset because I was looking forward to seeing this so much. I had heard nothing but great things about it, and was really excited to see two of my favorite, under-appreciated actors, Mackie and Renner, get the praise they deserve. Mostly though, I was pumped for Kathryn Bigelow to make an amazing movie. I love underdog stories, and I truly believe that every director out there is extremely talented (I would love to see Michael Bay make a stellar, Oscar-worthy effort), so I couldn't wait to see this masterpiece that the director of the surfer/bank robber classic Point Break had molded.
I was monumentally disappointed.
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