The Hurt Locker

I saw "The Hurt Locker" today. I am not going to spoil it for you all, but the movie gives the correct impression that war can be both painfully tedious (between fire fights) and gloriously exciting (during fire fights.) I can't attest to the reality of the plot, some of the bomb defusing material and derring do seems a bit far fetched, but the movie is on the whole, a great one.

Also, too much is made of the fact that war is a kind of "addiction" for some men. To be addictive, something has to give you pleasure in the first place. So much pleasure that you want to do it over and over again. There is a reason that men continually go to war and that is because many of them like it.

The main character in Hurt Locker loves his job as a bomb defuser. This movie is not of the "Stop Loss" variety where guys are just wetting their pants thinking about returning to battle. Lefties in the audience (I saw it in San Francisco) had little to laugh about in this movie except for a scene where Iraq boys run alongside a moving American Humvee and throw rocks at it, and another in which David Morse plays a moronic Colonel. The audience was almost entirely silent except for these scenes, both of which they snickered at.

I, and the Vietnam vet next to me, (who was there with his son) laughed a lot more than anyone else. The movie was filmed in Jordan and there were a few scenes that included skinny and crippled cats, which, of course caused some female members of the audience to groan in sympathy. The cats were real, and the many dead humans in the movie merely actors, so I guess the cats rightly elicited more pity.

The tension level is very high and I got queasy a few times during the film. It is like the worst/best roller coaster ride you have ever ridden. I really wanted to get right back in line and see it again.