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

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Movie Review: Taken

MPAA Rated PG-13 (should push more towards R than the PG -13 it received)

Before watching the movie Taken, I had heard many people say that they really liked it that it was gripping and intense. Being a Liam Neesan fan, I was looking forward to watching this drama and was hoping for a good script.

Liam Neesan plays a retired Government agent that is estranged from his wife and daughter. He has just moved to California to renew relations with his 16 year old daughter when the movie opens. Neesan is beside himself when he realizes that his daughter, Jenny, wants to spend the Summer in Paris. Shortly after he relents and lets his daughter go to Paris, he finds out that she plans on traveling around Europe following the rock group U2. Because of his history, he is nervous about the situation and does not want his daughter to go. After a set of ultimatums given to his daughter he lets her go reluctantly.

Not long after the landing of Jenny and her friend in Paris, they arrive in the house of Jenny's friends cousins house. Within the course of a few minutes strange men burst in the house and kidnap both Jenny and her friend. Jenny happened to be on the phone with her father at the time and she is able to give him some description of what the perpetrators looked like. He is able to talk to one of the men foreshadows the rest of the movie telling him he will find him and wont stop until his daughter is found.

The movie is an okay action movie. There is not much dialogue and the characters are not well developed. But the movie does do a good job drawing attention the sex-slave trafficking that takes place in countries all around the world. If we walk away with nothing else from this movie hopefully we will come away with the reality that this type of stuff exists and should be dealt with.

My Rating 2 of 5 Nateys

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Christmas 2009

Here are some pics from 2009. I am a novice at this, so please show me some grace!

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