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Hurt Locker more deserving than Avatar

Published: Friday, March 5, 2010

Updated: Friday, March 5, 2010 00:03

This Sunday brings with it the annual Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, where the best in filmmaking will be rewarded with the industry's highest honors. This year is the first since 1943 where there are 10 nominees for Best Picture, but there are only a few candidates that truly deserve it.

"Avatar" is, of course, going to get a lot of consideration because it set many box-office records and turned a commercially friendly movie into something special. Its tired plot was noticeable and predictable, but solid acting performances and the wonder of the fictional planet Pandora kept audiences flocking to theaters across the country.

However you feel about "that popular movie with all the blue people," it's an amazing achievement in technology and deserves whatever categories it wins on Sunday. Unless it wins Best Picture. That envelope should read, "The Hurt Locker."

"The Hurt Locker" redefines the war movie genre. Its depiction of the Iraq War feels too real. Your stomach hurts for our American soldiers when the movie ends. The performance by lead character Jeremy Renner is so exact that many audience members wonder as they leave if the movie they just saw was actually a documentary (Renner deserves more than a few looks for Best Actor, but he should probably concede to Jeff Bridges for his fantastic role in "Crazy Heart").

War movies are immense and often tied down by the difficulty in capturing so many issues in such a short period of time. But director Kathryn Bigelow focuses so tightly on a small fragment of the infantry that the audience doesn't feel overwhelmed. Instead, they sit gripped to their seats through anxious action scenes and wonder what will happen next at every turn.
Movies like "Avatar" and "The Hurt Locker" are both rare in their own right, but "The Hurt Locker" deserves to win for it bringing people together to see a movie about a war that still divides our country.

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1 comments

Anonymous
Fri Mar 5 2010 04:03
I must be missing the joke this year- that everyone seems to favor The Hurt Locker. The battle and bomb disarming scenes were intense, but the terrible dialogue, inconsistent tone, and eyeroll-inducing male-bonding and action movie cliches prevent The Hurt Locker from being a good film. The characters are completely as one-dimensional as Avatar's derivative plot. Sgt. James is a wild, hard-drinking cowboy with a reckless attitude, and if one doesn't know that, the blatant statements like ”you’re a wild man” will clue you in. There’s nothing new or special about him and his “bad ass” persona goes so far that it’s hard to be believed. Eight Oscar nominations? Screenplay? Editing? Cinematography? How far has the sensibility and cultural landscape of America slipped? Shaking the camera around to disorient the viewer gets old after the opening sequence and does not count as good cinematography- unlike Inglourious Basterds and Avatar- also counting because the camera was a physical virtual camera. The so-called 'tension' of defusing bombs becomes tedious at the 3rd try and never recovers.

There’s no plot and barely a story for that matter, just a bunch of scenes strung together with unrealistic male bonding that show how AWESOME and RAD Sgt. James is. There’s no character development, because 1) the characters don't if barely change and 2) we already know everything we need to know about the one-dimensional characters halfway through the movie. In fact, there are really no characters at all in The Hurt Locker; they’re all essentially caricatures. Which brings me to my next point. The Hurt Locker isn’t a war movie. There’s nothing to be said about the war in Iraq, who our enemies are- anonymous, hostile Arabs conveniently show up when we’re in need of action- who is planting the bombs, why the bombs are there, and so on. The movie doesn’t even bother asking these questions.

There is not much point to this film. If the main idea is to show the insanity of Renner's character then this works on a cardboard thin level. But if this film is supposed to show a realistic portrait of the military experience in Iraq, then it only shows that experience to be morally bankrupt, utterly pointless and totally insane - and not even in a very realistic or worthwhile way. In summary, I do think The Hurt Locker has some redeeming value, particularly Renner and some of the action sequences. But to call this a war movie, let alone a good one, is absurd.

The Hurt Locker will win Sunday. Sane people not taken up/fooled by Hurt Locker's subject more than it's actual filmmaking would say Inglourious Basterds, Avatar, Up in the Air, etc. is what happened in 2009.







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