I am a self confessed film buff and generally like to keep abreast of all things cinematic. However, this year I have not done well with this particular passion, what with a vicious amount of work to do and the end of my university career looming ahead, it feels a little like living in an Auden poem. I can only confess to seeing 7 of the 10 nominations for Best Picture and a smattering of others throughout. So I thought it about time I checked out the film that's been doing the proverbial cleaning at this year's awards ceremonies.
I have to say I went in a little apprehensive, the academy are famed for making questionable choices (need I reference the 2003 Chicago fiasco, or the 2006 Crash travesty?) Also a great friend of mine is hardly a fan, and we rarely disagree.
However, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. For the most part the film is pretty enjoyable. The narrative arc is well structured, featuring some incredible moments of tension, the bomb factory and the section in the car being a couple of highlights. The cinematography is another fairly strong point, there are some really lovely shots, standing out nicely against the majority of the erratic handheld camerawork, which in itself does a comprehensive job of maintaining the tension throughout. It's nice to see a war film that is not simply explosions and works via the successful building of tension. One of the strongest points here to my mind is the build up of the protagonist, he is incredibly flawed, your standard anti-hero, presented with all his foibles. This, although hardly revolutionary or difficult to achieve, is well done and certainly kept me interested.
Here is where the praise stops. Up to this point I have ignored the last five minutes of the film, which not only undermines EVERYTHING that's just happened over the last 2 hours of your life, but is so incredibly infuriating it made me want to punch someone in the face.
**Here be spoilers**
So, after coming back from war he has to get on with the boring day to day activities, cleaning out the gutters, having a son etc. This is all great, a really nice juxtaposition between the reckless anarchy of his bomb diffusing days and the mundanity of the everyday. Finishing shortly after this point, would have been great, showing war as damaging him irreparably, cutting of even the delights of his son. It's nothing new, or even exciting, but it would have been acceptable.
Instead what we get is a terribly scripted monologue, directed at his baby son (an incredibly cheap shot in itself) on the changing nature of love, and how there's only one love left for him: war. Cut to him walking, in slow motion, in the bomb suit, in Iraq, massive grin on his face, to a heavy metal track. End. Was it the most cliched and infuriating thing I've ever seen? Possibly. Does it ruin what up till now, has been a pretty tense look at the human issues found in conflict? Absolutely.
Also, speaking of the slow motion, this is peppered throughout the film and it awful at every single use. To cut suddenly from the jerky handheld camerawork to an incredibly staged, slow motion shot is so, so jarring and screams of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace. Couple this with the fact that they're always of explosions/bullets falling to the floor/bodies flying through the air/buildings rippling with shockwaves etc. the change in pace and style is just too much. It's as if Michael Bay suddenly came in and started dicking around when no one was looking. Almost unforgivable in undermining the film's severity.
**Spoilers done**
Now, I have no issue with this film doing well, for the most part it's great, and it's nice to see a woman finally getting the oscar nod for some (on the whole) good directing. But I seriously question whether it warrants all the hype. It was by NO means the best film of the year. To be honest it's a film I've seen countless, countless times before. The characters are nothing new, the debate between adrenaline and safety is also nothing new. The presentation of 'the other' is nothing new and bordering on racist, every single Iraqi citizen comes complete with generic foreign accent and links to terrorism. Transpose any war film to Iraq and this is the film you'd get.
Now, people have been bandying this criticism of unoriginality about a lot at the moment, particularly in the case of Avatar. Which I agree is incredibly flawed, with a storyline a good 15 years out of date, but at least it did something new. At least there was something new for me to be excited about, something to help me past the story I've seen a thousand times before. I by no means think Avatar should have won best picture, not in a thousand years. But, before everyone starts getting all excited about The Hurt Locker, just look at the criticisms leveled (often fairly) at Avatar and then see how they're even more applicable to this film. I for one am far more excited about what Avatar brought to the cinematic table than anything I got from The Hurt Locker.
Rant over.