The Hurt Locker (2009)
Bottomline: Movie well worth your time and money.
Pros: Terrific production. Jeremy Renner. Anthony Mackie. Brian Geraghty. Edge-of-your-seat suspenseful.
Cons: There is a lot -- a lot -- going on in this film. Sometimes it drags. Particularly disturbing scene involving the disarming of an unusual bomb.
Where Can I See It? It is in wide release at theaters across the country (finally!!)
Interesting Note: If you see the trailer and you think you recognize Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty, you do. Both guys are in We Are Marshall (2006) as football players. Their chemistry is excellent here.
QMR Opinion: It is a rare day when a movie really lives up to the hype. Just about every reviewer I follow has put this movie in their Top 5 of 2009. It deserves it. It is easily one of the best Iraq-based movies I've seen and it's directed by (of all people) Kathryn Bigelow. Her use of handheld cameras puts you on the ground in Iraq. You can almost feel the heat. Taste the dust. Jeremy Renner plays the new leader of a bomb disposal unit, and Renner is brilliant. Bigelow does a good job of illustrating the tedium of Iraq interrupted suddenly by death and mayhem. You are on the edge of your seat throughout the film. Her use or, better said, non-use of music is excellent. The lack of sound at certain points of the film only enhances the tension. Considering the subject matter, the movie is not overly graphic; although, there is one scene where you don't want to be eating nachos. It's an up close look at soldiers who face death day after day so the language is rough and the men act like boys. In particular, I liked the end -- one minute facing death then the next trying to find the right cereal at the grocery store.
John Hughes, R.I.P.
John Hughes died on August 6 of this year at the age of 59. Much too young. Now, I make no claim that Hughes was a Martin Scorsese or Ridley Scott but, let's face it, they guy made some totally awesome teen films that defined the '80s and he wrote some of the funniest stuff ever. If he never wrote the screenplay for another film after writing Vacation (1983) or Christmas Vacation (1989), then he would have found a special place in my heart. He directed eight films including Sixteen Candles (1984), The Breakfast Club (1985), and Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987). Most of the tributes I've heard for Hughes have centered on his teen films (I had a huge crush on Molly Ringwald) but I purposely included a trailer for Planes because it has become a tradition for the Pippen family to gather around the TV at Thanksgiving and watch the annual showing of this terrific Steve Martin and John Candy comedy.
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