Thursday 10th September

The Hurt Locker

Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Year: 2008
Stars: Jeremny Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brain Geraghty

Going to watch this was unexpected. I had wanted to see it when I heard about (I've liked the directors past films, such as Strange Days, and it sounded a bit different to your standard war movie), but it didn't seem like there'd be time to go what with everything else I wanted to see. So when a friend rang and asked if I wanted to go in, erm, half an hour's time, I thought why not?

The film follows a bomb squad in Iraq as they work together as a team of three to try and detonate bombs that have failed to go off without hurting anyone. It's a pretty long film, but that in itself isn't a bad thing. The problem is that there's not really anything in here you haven't heard before. For some reason I was expecting a more profound message, and I didn't really get it. War is bad - tick. Some men love war - tick. If there's a deeper meaning, I didn't hear it. Or perhaps that was the point; to not bother with the message?

Certain parts of the film did work well. It wasn't all about people just shooting one another, which was nice. It was about working as a team and how that can work really well - or really badly. And the detail was stunning. Overall though, it just felt too long. And a word of warning to anybody going to see this "because of" Ralph Fiennes, Guy Pearce or Evangline Lily - you can't exactly say any of them "star" in it...

Rating: 3 out of 5