Developing Countries Look Like Home Now

So I'm back, freshly returned from the wilds of Bali, Indonesia. It was wild, wonderful, amazing, adjective, and all that cliche study abroad stuff; in short, every inch the adventure I had hoped it to be despite my vocal complaints beforehand. That entire story is chronicled (and still being chronicled, as I'm not quite done letting go) over at my stunning associate's site, Fear and Loathing in Bedulu. Now that I've assured my loyal readers in this part of the world that I'm alive and well, let's get back to what we do best: reviews of movies in a belated fashion.

Catching up with movies missed, we'll be writing about "The Hurt Locker" today, one of the few movies that I wanted to see still in theaters somewhere (thank the Golden Globes dudes for that, I think. Or SAG?). Anyways, this one's been out for a while, so this is going to end up being more impression-y. Basically, what we've got here is another movie chronicling the latest conflict, our little perpetual Iraqi involvement, but a fresh angle in that the film focuses on a few soldiers, specifically a bomb squad. Our two noble support tech guys, Sgt Sanborn and Spc Eldridge, have to deal with a new supervisor, one SSgt. Will James. With fewer than forty days left in their rotation, Sanborn and Eldridge just want to make it home alive; challenge is that James is a bit of a cowboy, and comes in after the former squad leader dies from taking a risk. Shocked and more than a little scared for their own lives, Sanborn and Eldridge react badly to James' risk-heavy madman approach to diffusing IEDs. And so things get down to business: the movie focuses on the psychology of soldiers fighting unfathomable odds (a more obtuse way of avoiding the phrase "invisible enemy"), and to a lesser extent the camaraderie of a group of egos (well, mostly Sanborn and James fighting over protocol) all on the same side.

"The Hurt Locker" is certainly a realistic movie, as one woman in the audience remarked loudly a couple of times, and that realism is one of its great strengths. Although we don't have faux-documentary style footage, the camera still shakes like a head in a helmet as our boys scatter for cover on a dusty street (although not sickeningly), and the writer/director team puts their time in country to good use (I forget who spent time imbedded) by serving up technical jargon. My main objection here is that I was thinking it would end up a bit more like "Apocalypse Now," probably because James reminds me so much of Bob Duval's Col. Kilgore. But instead of mysticism, we get psychology, which is nice in its own right. I have a feeling that "The Hurt Locker" will take a place of honor in the pantheon of Iraqi conflict movies of the future, but we're still missing a masterpiece.

Let me see... we've got plot, realism, objections. Other than that, I don't have much else to say. This one is definitely memorable, but not something that'll prey on the consciousness for days. There are inspired sequences, such as a run-in with British or Australian paramilitary contractors in the vast desert, that kind of distill the jaded sense of fear that must develop during a rotation, but the real meat is maddening bomb diffusing. Tight and thrilling movies don't come any realer than a sequence in a crossroads where one wire just leads to another.

Hmm... a bit rusty, but it's an inaugural effort. I've already got another review in the tubes, and hope to get to current release stuff with "Police, Adjective" before I head back east. In the mean time, thanks for tuning back in. It's good to be home.