Review of The Hurt Locker (2008) by Arthur_S_Poe — 11 Feb 2015

I cannot deny that 'The Hurt Locker' has a very specific power that does, in a way, attract people to it. It is a very boldly done war film about all the individual consequences of a war, something that has not been a standard topic of the genre. Yet, I was bitterly disappointed by it all, as it proved to be a disgustingly blatant work of American propaganda, whereby their political aggression is presented as a burden to those that willingly participated it. Who the f**k cares about what the war did to someone who, under the pretext of 'liberalization and democracy', behaved like a bloody dictator? I was utterly disappointed by all the awards the movie gained and I must say that the critical universal acclaim somehow escapes me, as I don't see any relevant acclaim that should be attributed to the movie. It is slow, effectively boring and dull, one-sided and biased and it actually borders some propaganda work, but without the chauvinistic subtext. But, yes, the glorification of the American Soldier (just to make it clear - America is not the problem here, it is the glorification of a phenomenon that should be condemned and I would say the exact same things if the film was about Congo, Cambodia, Britain or Guatemala) is there and it is absolutely sickening (I actually fell asleep for 20 minutes and when I woke up I concluded that I haven't missed a thing - enough said).

I detested Jeremy Renner after seeing the movie and I was glad he lost the Oscar that year. In time, my opinion of him did improve, but the role was disastrous. It wasn't bad, quite the contrary, but the character itself, his portrayal and all of that combined with the movie itself was dreadful.

So, 'The Hurt Locker', albeit a well designed war film, offers little to nothing of the potential it has, becoming thus a propaganda work and the glorification of a war-raging policy that should be forgotten within the history books and not glorified on screen.