Thoughts on 'The Hurt Locker'

Thanks to the good folks at Netflix, I finally got around to seeing "The Hurt Locker" this weekend. And yeah, it was good. But at this point, I don't think most people really care if it was good; people want to know if it was better or more award-worthy than "Avatar." And you know what? I don't really think it was.

In fact, the more I (and my ever-loving special lady friend) thought about it over the weekend, we realized that pretty much every major criticism that's been thrown at "Avatar" can also be fairly applied to "The Hurt Locker." Don't believe me? Check this out:

"Avatar" criticism #1: The story isn't original.
Without fail, every time someone tries to hate on "Avatar," their principal criticism of the film is that its plot is simply a rehash of a story we've seen executed earlier (and, some would argue, better) in films such as "Dances with Wolves," "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Dune." And that criticism is fair. (But, one could also argue (as I and special lady friend have done) that Cameron needed to keep the story on familiar ground in order to not loose viewers who were already blown away by the film's visuals.)

But, if you want to play the "we've seen this all before" game, try the plot of "The Hurt Locker" on for size: a reckless, doesn't-play-by-the-rules rebel who only feels complete when executing his special brand of warring or crime-fightin' finds himself in conflict with a sensible but stubborn stick-to-the-mission-type in a tense setting where all their lives are in danger, man. Really, if you've seen a war/cop action movie ever, you've seen "The Hurt Locker." The only difference here is that now this story is being told in Baghdad, in 2004.

"Avatar" criticism #2: Its main characters aren't people.
This gripe can also be listed as "its protagonists are all CG creations," which they are, but so was Gollum, and I think we can all agree that he was awesome, amirite? Well, to elaborate slightly on what I was saying under criticism #1, while they may be played by actors (including Jeremy Renner in a star-making performance) the characters in "The Hurt Locker" feel even more artificial than the Na'vi of Pandora; Sgts. James and Sanborn don't feel like people in "The Hurt Locker," they feel like well-executed types.

"Avatar" criticism #3: It was too political, man.
Yes, "Avatar" makes no secret about its lefty-leaning politics. But, being a lefty myself, I didn't really see this as a fault. When a film that's virtually sure to have hundreds of millions of sets of eyes on it decides to really make us think about the cost of waging war and of exploiting natural resources, I simply don't see that as a bad thing.

However, for a film that is set in the midst of the Iraq War, "The Hurt Locker" is strangely apolitical. Sure, there's the film's face-palm-inducingly obvious "war is a drug" message (it's addictive for some, deadly for others) but really, even that left me asking the movie "What else ya got?" By making "The Hurt Locker" a cliche-ridden character study, director Kathryn Bigelow has crafted a movie that pays close attention to the soldiers and largely ignores the war and expects the viewer to do the same -- which, in my opinion, is a grave mistake when you're making a film about a war that's still happening as I type these very words.

A few years ago Mark Boal, the screenwriter behind "The Hurt Locker," had a hand in crafting the story for Paul Haggis' "In the Valley of Elah." While it's also a flawed work, to me "Elah" is a much better and much more socially responsible film, because it looked at both the lives of American soldiers in Iraq and the impact the war has at home. On the other hand, "The Hurt Locker" comes across as a much more self-centered work, because it bypasses the entire Iraq War to focus its attention on someone who probably didn't like to color inside the lines in kindergarten.

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Whew. Now, just to be clear, overall I liked "The Hurt Locker." It was well-shot, the performances were strong despite the one-dimensionality of the characters on the page and the editing and camera work did a great job of creating tension without resorting to gimmicky Michael Bay editing tricks. I just don't think it was better than "Avatar," even though I didn't think that movie was perfect, either.

"So, big shot," you might be thinking at this point in the blog post, "who would YOU vote for in the Best Picture Oscar race?"

First of all, thanks for asking, Voice in My Head. Out of the field of 10(?!?!) nominees this year, I'd go with Quentin Tarantino's "Inglorious Basterds." I'll probably dedicate a full blog post to my thoughts on that film at some point, but for now let me tell you why it succeeds in the three areas people where are so quick to criticize "Avatar" (and where I'm more than happy to point out flaws in "The Hurt Locker.")

On point one, a dedicated Quentin Tarantino viewer could argue that none of his films are inherently original by design, but that's part of their brilliance. QT takes the genres he loves, turns them on their ear and then gives them back to the world. This time out, he took on three genres:
* The men-on-a-mission picture: He turned the Dirty Dozen into supporting players and ultimately made their contribution to the plot minimal at best because SPOILER ALERT Hitler and company still would have been killed when the theater exploded. Which leads us to...
* The revenge picture: QT took one girl's quest for vengeance and had it change the course of history, which is awesome.
* The detective saga: while you probably don't agree with the side he's playing for (I know I don't), Col. Hans Landa is one great sleuth, and one who probably would get a whole franchise to himself if he wasn't, you know, a Nazi.

Much like in point one, for point two QT has taken some characters we've all seen before and given them entirely fresh spins, like the determined detective (Col. Landa), the salty platoon leader (Aldo Raide), the woman out for vengeance (Shosanna), the double-agent (Bridget von Hammersmark) and the egotistical movie star (Fredrick Zoller). You've seen these characters before, but never like this, and after you see them in "Basterds," you'll never look at them the same way again.

As far as point three goes, "Basterds" isn't incredibly political, and it doesn't need to be. That's one of the beauties of telling Nazi stories; you pretty much don't need to convince anybody in the audience which side they should be rooting for at this shootin' match.

Well, I've gone on a little longer than I expected, but them's my thoughts. But I want to know, what do you guys think? Am I being too hard on "The Hurt Locker"? Is it really as good as everyone says it is? And who are you pulling for in the Best Picture race? Please don't say "The Blind Side."