The Hurt Locker was the big winner at this year’s Academy Awards, taking home trophies for Best Picture, Director, Editing, Sound, Sound Editing, and Writing. In the process, it beat out a swelled roster of 9 films nominated for Best Picture that included the behemoth that was Avatar. It also won almost every major award leading up to the Oscars.
The Hurt Locker opens a narrow window on the ongoing war in Iraq, specifically on the group of soldiers tasked with defusing explosive devices aimed at crippling the US troops efforts to win the war.
This is one of those movies that keep you on edge from the opening sequence all the way to the closing one, so I’m very glad it won for editing. Same goes for directing, which had the added benefit of finally awarding a woman director (Kathryn Bigelow) for the first time in the 80+ years of the Oscars.
The screenplay is good and slim, and it creates a tense environment in which the actors are able to display their talents. Jeremy Renner in particular is very intense as the seemingly fearless guy that faces any new bomb threat head on. Only when we see him with his son do we get a glimpse of what drives him and likely many others who volunteer to serve in the Army.
Am I glad that The Hurt Locker won top honors? Overall, yes. Because it is a movie that leaves its mark, has a story to tell and tells it well, and is very well made. True, it didn’t have the larger-than-life quality displayed by Avatar, but that shouldn’t be the criteria that determines the winner, otherwise blockbusters would routinely beat out smaller, more artistically oriented films.
Grade: 8
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