rillawafers

rcca:

“The Hurt Locker hones in on the fatalistic psychology of the Iraqi war zone more convincingly than any other recent film about soldiers on the battlefield.” — Robert Davis, Paste Magazine

Mr. Davis, what on earth could you possibly know about the fatalistic psychology of the Iraqi war zone?  96 Rotten Tomatoes say it’s a great movie, but a bunch of soldiers and sailors gathered one cold night in the rugged Afghanistan hinterlands will disagree.

Since our MRAPs have 110V power outlets, I decided to bring an LCD projector, laptop, speakers, and the finest bazaar bootleg DVDs $2 will buy along on a two week mission (We had a coffee maker and microwave, too—Napoleon’s want and privation be damned). After running an extension cord and 550-cording a plastic Rosomak cover over the security wall, I fired up possibly the first-ever armored vehicle drive-in movie theater.  Our EOD team had already seen Hurt Locker and decreed it unwatchable.  I suppose the rest took that as a challenge.

There’s some psychosis that occurs when you are actually afraid of something and simultaneously annoyed at the inaccuracy of your fear’s presentation.  Maybe like confronting a giant spider wearing a top hat?

A few brave men stayed through the whole movie (masochists are overrepresented in the Army).  I stayed because I brought the projector and didn’t want it damaged.  The implausibity of the story and the un-real EOD tactics didn’t do any favors for the lame character direction.  This IED movie bombed (ha!).

I thought this movie was well put together from a writing and directing point of view, but the character development was criminally inadequate and the director made poor choices (i.e in this movie soldiers are robots, then delicate flowers, then robots again) and made parts of the movie unbelievable at best.  Reading this review was a little sobering - so happy fourth to those protecting us, not those in the movies acting like they are.