Movie Review-The Hurt Locker

MPAA Rating-R (Nate's rating somewhere between PG-13 and R)

I admit, I had not heard about this movie before the Oscars. But after seeing it pull out an improbable win against some other major heavyweight movies to capture the Best Picture award, and after reading some reviews that praised the fact that it's focus (unlike most Iraq movies at this point) was not political, I decided to give it a spin.

Imagine being in the middle of a desert being suffocated by over 100 degree heat. And on top of all that you are about to put on a 100 pound bomb suit and walk over 50 meters to your destination to hopefully defuse a bomb that was hastily assembled by insurgents hell bent on doing nothing else but causing complete chaos and mayhem. That is the basic theme of The Hurt Locker.

This movie takes you an journey spanning about 30 days of Bravo Companies deployment. In the process, the special bomb unit deals with everything from bombs left in the trunk of cars, to an Iraqi man that has been forced to strap a bomb to his torso with a timer on it. The way the movie is divided up could almost be like five or six different little mini-movies.

The Hurt Locker is a graphic, gritty depiction of the Iraqi conflict. Even though there is death and much profanity, I don't think it was overdone or dramatized. In fact, I have seen many other nonsensical movies that have glorified death and dismemberment more than this movie did. The scenes are intense. You will find yourself sitting on the edge of your seat hoping that the bomb crew will survive another day.

If you have children I would have say to use caution when watching the movie with them. If you decide to let your children watch it, be present and prepared to explain what is going on and the risks that our soldiers take every day.

Although The Hurt Locker is hard to watch, it is a gripping movie that portrays war in a sobering light.

4 out of 5 Nateys