Overall: A. Direction: A. Acting: A.
In an attempt to see all the movies that are possibly up for best picture either on the Golden Globes or the Oscars, I watched the Hurt Locker last night. It was released on DVD January 12, 2010. My husband and I give every movie we see 20 minutes to bring us into the story and capture our imagination- this is one of the advantages of being an armchair critic- I don't have to watch what I deem unworthy of my attention! If it doesn't grab within 20 minutes, we are on to the next one. Every once in a while, especially if it is a director I follow, I allow more lattitude regarding the 20 minute rule, like when we watched Public Enemies last week directed by the immensely talented Michael Mann. But there it was- 2 hours and some minutes later it ended and Graydon and I looked at each other and said "that is 2 hours wasted that we will never get back!" The movie was HORRIBLE. I allowed my blind commitment to auteurism to steal two hours of my life away. Well, I will often tell myself that it is important to see mediocrity in action to help better identify greatness.
OK, back to the 20 minute rule. We begin watching The Hurt Locker. I am pulled in right away with the hand held cameras, the grainy, documentary style colors and filters and of course, the subject matter at hand: a man dressed in a bomb suit investigating a possible detonation because the remote investigator broke down. The tension was building and I am thinking, "OK, he will survive- that is Guy Pearce for pete's sake! No way will they have a major actor die right away!" And then, kablooey! Huge explosion, blood in the helmet, slow motion camera. Pearce's character is dead and the first scene is over: 12 minutes. Holy Shit. One of the most intense, well composed opening scenes of a war/action film ever.
Katherine Bigelow got something so right here. A perfect combination of men at their most vulnerable and at their toughest. The tale tells many things: young men's struggles during wartime, the illogical and frightening nature of terrorism and the nihilism that takes over war zones. I know nothing of the plausibility of the stories but whether it is realistic seems beyond the point; Bigelow tells the tale with pure cinematic acuity and with her talent she gets right to the heart of the matter: the war in Iraq is illogical, unjustified and does a lot more damage than good. Pure narrative cinema is 98% visual and 2% dialogue. In other words, when a story is told "right" - show don't tell, then the impact is just as strong without the dialogue. Bigelow is a master at visual storytelling, in the tradition o.f Sergei Eisenstein and Kurosawa. Right on Sister!
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