Movie Review: The Hurt Locker

My heart can't handle these kinds of movies. I'm serious. I don't know why I thought I'd be able to handle a movie about deactivating bombs because I hand my hands over my eyes for a good portion of the movie. However, that doesn't mean I didn't like the movie. It was excellent.

As a daughter of a vet (and cousin and friend of several men in the armed forces) I usually stay away from war themed movies but since The Hurt Locker is one of the ten movies nominated for best picture I figured I should see it.

The first ten minutes of the movie I was already on the edge of my seat as the it starts right in the midst of mission where three soldiers are attempting to deactivate a IED. Needless to say the whole movie I was either gasping, closing my eyes or praying that a bomb didn't explode, it was intense. However the parts when my heart wasn't racing I was laughing, mainly at Jeremy Renner's character, Sgt. James. He's the new guy in the company who doesn't play by the rules. Pretty much he's a delinquent badass. He doesn't listen to orders, he disables bombs without the proper outfitting, he goes on a rogue mission, he flips off his commander, pretty much the list goes on but I think you get the picture.

His character is the light heartedness needed in any war movie. He shows what some soldiers are really like and how there aren't set "rules of wartime" and I liked that. That doesn't mean I didn't yell at him when he made some dumb decisions (because I did) but I still liked him.

All in all, if you can get through intense "will it explode or won't it" and "is he going to get shot or not" scenes then I think you can appreciate the story this movie is trying to share and have even more respect for our soldiers at war.