Miller Time: ‘Hurt Locker’ a good watch, but not Best Picture

by Steve Miller | March 12, 2010 | Montana Kaimin

It’s time to come clean.

Since its release last July, “The Hurt Locker” has been widely hailed as one of the best movies of the year. Sunday’s Oscar telecast further validated its reputation of greatness when it took home six awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Kathryn Bigelow.
But after watching “The Hurt Locker” in January, I must admit it didn’t live up to my expectations and, even as I think of it now, the movie doesn’t strike me as Best Picture caliber.

Just as with “The Hangover,” I may be one of the few — perhaps the only — who find “The Hurt Locker” somewhat unsatisfying and not equal to the encompassing hype.

For some time, I tried to convince myself that it was everything the movie critics and small audiences make it out to be, but I just couldn’t do it. So I began to blame myself. Maybe I don’t understand what makes a great movie, or maybe I can’t appreciate it enough because I’m so far removed from the Iraq War. Maybe I’m missing something in my life, or maybe something’s not right with me. I didn’t know where to go, or in whom I could confide; I was alone in my lukewarmness to “The Hurt Locker.”

It wasn’t until I hit rock bottom in my questioning of the movie’s genius (for a time, I even wondered why it was nominated for Best Picture) when I realized something: Perhaps my judgment was based on the praise surrounding the film rather than on the film itself.

Taking away the awards and gushing reviews, “The Hurt Locker” is an intriguing and brutal movie, taut with suspense and fraught with palpable tension and character-driven action.

Shot in Kuwait and Jordan (sometimes within three miles of the Iraqi border), “The Hurt Locker” offers an intensely real look into the lives of those on the front lines of the Iraq War. Bigelow conveys fully — or at least better than anyone else — the harsh reality of insurgent warfare: Death could come with the push of a cell phone button and no one truly knows combatants from civilians. The streets, the desert or even an abandoned car may be the enemy.

From an acting standpoint, “The Hurt Locker” is cast almost perfectly. Jeremy Renner has the role of his life playing Sgt. First Class William James, the cocky and brazing team leader of a bomb disposal unit. Renner, who was nominated for Best Actor at the Oscars, comes off as brutish and overly bold at times as James, but in the abandoned warehouse and the following events, his compassionate and human side comes through all the stronger.

Aside from Renner, the supporting characters bring equally real and gritty performances to the screen, with Anthony Mackie as Sgt. J.T. Sanborn and Brian Geraghty as Specialist Owen Eldridge, both fellow bomb
squad members.   

Perhaps the most compelling peg of “The Hurt Locker” is the fact that the film seemed to fall from the sky. Bigelow, whose previous work includes “The Weight of Water” and “Strange Days,” hadn’t directed a film since 2002’s “K-19: The Widowmaker,” which wasn’t a classic by any means. Seven years later, though, she is the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Director.

At one time, “The Hurt Locker” was the indie movie everybody was talking about, but few had actually seen outside of film festivals. But when awards season started, it was the favorite to take home the statuettes. And it did, quite handily.

That said, I expected the film to knock me flat, just as previous Best Picture winners like “No Country for Old Men” and “The Departed” had. But it never succeeded in completely grabbing me and holding my interest. In fact, I found some plot points to be tedious and unnecessary. I also thought the ending was a bit abrupt, and, well, a little cliché.

It’s hard for me to separate the movie from its reviews and reception, and, in a way, that hurt the movie for me. Had I seen “The Hurt Locker” totally unaware of its universal greatness, I may have had a more realistic perception of the film. Instead, I kept thinking that it’s good, but not 97-percent-on-Rotten-Tomatoes good.

Perhaps that’s a problem on my part that can’t be helped, and perhaps the problem of lofty expectations isn’t something “The Hurt Locker” can help. But there are much worse things a film can do.

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