Iraq Veterans Keep Sniping at 'The Hurt Locker,' Missing the Point
The chorus of military criticism of The Hurt Locker keeps getting louder. A slew of Iraq veterans have dissected the its accuracy without, in my opinion, making a serious argument against it as a film. Now, a former infantryman has taken to the Atlantic to say it shouldn’t win Best Picture because its license with reality is essentially the same as soldiers who lie about their military exploits to appear heroic. (Really.)
I understand the urge for people with firsthand experience to nit-pick the movie’s accuracy, particularly as critics rave about how “realistic” it is. But that’s different from imposing an arbitrary moralism on a movie—insisting The Hurt Locker shouldn’t win an award because it did the things the medium is known for, namely making things more exciting and or condensing the timelines. The movie doesn’t purport to be a true story, and even with a journalist screenwriter and actors that underwent military training in preparation for their roles, is still very obviously a work of fiction. (One could work up a similarly lengthy list of that-would-never-happens for any of its rivals in the Best Picture category.)
Brian Mockenhaupt, the soldier writing in the Atlantic, admits that movie “nails” the setting—the heat, dust, sweat, trashy streets, curious Iraqis, etc. Which is essentially what it was trying to do. I would wager Bigelow cared more about a realistic “feel” than precisely realistic plotting. It’s sequenced like an action film, and her shaky camera is meant to convey a sense of running alongside the squad, not the phony factual authenticity Mockenhaupt imagines. We are supposed to feel like we are in the middle of one of Will James ill-advised escapades, never mind the fact that it probably wouldn’t have happened exactly as it does on screen. We feel the danger and emotion of a very intimate situation, which most war movies, with their giant casts and swelling themes, fail to capture.
The strength of The Hurt Locker is the very adrenaline rushes its military critics are complaining about. Call them Hollywood-concocted scenarios if you must, but surely they can play a role in helping us “outsiders” grasp the sensations of being on the ground in Iraq without having us believe everything we see on TV. Its punch has little to do with its alleged factual weaknesses. Thanks to this film, I now understand a tiny fraction of the terror of disarming a bomb that could dismember me at any moment. I have a glimpse of what it’s like to shift from that deadly environment to the humdrum reality of American daily life. I was not, contrary to Mockenhaupt’s read-in analysis, told “that war, as experienced by so many Americans, isn’t meaningful enough as is, but must be gussied up with outsiders’ interpretations of what makes the experience profound.”
The Hurt Locker is, as Dana Stevens wrote, “without question the most exciting and least ideological movie yet made about the war in Iraq.” None of its Best Picture competitors (other than maybe Avatar) can lay claim to such a superlative, and that’s why it deserves the statue. The Oscars are about exciting movies.
The Hurt Locker was on my most eagerly anticipated movies of the year. And then when I saw it I coudn’t believe how much fuss had been made. It was basically a Stephen Seagal movie with better acting.
The problem with The Hurt Locker is that it is neither what it was sold as (a gripping film about the Iraq war) nor is it an adequate popcorn action movie. It’s too cartoonish and unrealistic to be a depiction of what it’s like to be a solider in combat (in that respect it gets almost everything wrong) and its too slowpaced to be a suspenseful action movie.
Watching the hero of the movie cut wires on a bomb may be suspenseful if you’ve never seen a movie before and don’t realize that he’s not going to get killed when the film has an hour to go.
Heck, Avatar was more exciting and the had more realistic depictions of military life than The Hurt Locker.
— Joe Carter · Mar 3, 09:52 PM · #
If the guy’s point is that the director of Point Break was, perhaps, a bit overly fanciful with her depiction of action in Iraq, that she gussied up what would have been an otherwise meaningful film—I can hardly blame him. It seems his point was that reality would have been good enough, and distortion for the sake of “adrenaline” might be callous.
Meanwhile, it was still the best film of the year.
— John Garrison · Mar 3, 10:19 PM · #
Seems to me if you are going to make a film about a war that is currently taking place you should either 1) take painstaking measures to make it as authentic as possible, or 2) not make the film at all. Movies about WWII, Korea, Vietnam, etc. work because we have lived to see the other side of them, and these films serve as a retrospective and dramatization for people like me (I’m 28) who didn’t experience them. Are they wholly accurate? I’m sure they aren’t, but that matters much less when you know the outcome and the wounds of those wars have had time to heal.
Many soldiers have returned from this war broken, battered, and shell-shocked. When they see a film dramatizing what they recently experienced I don’t think we should expect them to be able to parse the plot inaccuracies from the film-making and create a cogent, rationalized film review. Maybe in 25 years when this mess is behind them, but not a few years, months, days, after their service. Or worse, during their service.
The wounds of this war are still being inflicted. Most of them have not had time to heal. Let’s give it some time before we decide just how great or not this movie is.
— Jamo · Mar 4, 03:32 AM · #
It is a good story, isn’t it?
— バックリンク · Mar 4, 06:12 AM · #
I’m one of these “outsiders” with zero military experience. I was immediately struck at how unrealistic the James character felt. This was before any of the debate cropped up. Focusing on a bomb squad was a wonderful decision and, yes, all the dust and trash looked sufficiently gritty and real. But it doesn’t take a soldier to know how absurd it is to have an unhinged sergeant charging around Baghdad at night and risking the lives of his men with absolutely zero supervision. It just takes common sense. Where in hell was this guy’s superior officer? The movie didn’t even hint at a command structure. If the movie were about Blackwater, it’d be less of an issue. But it’s not. And the main problem lies with the main character in a film that’s become the darling of the critics and a counterbalance to the “lowbrow popcorn” of Avatar. Hurt Locker isn’t bad. It has some nice moments. But an Iraqi sniper cutting down three men with three bullets from a mile away is not one of them. Nor is a guy putting on his blast helmet and passing out in bed because the director thinks it makes for a cool image. That kind of stuff makes it feel phony and, curiously, very Hollywood. A shoo-in for the Oscar.
— Mosesloaf · Mar 4, 07:56 AM · #
My problem with the movie had nothing to do with its accuracy. The big issue for me is that I’ve seen this movie a dozen times before.The characters are stock (slightly dumb but well-meaning white guy, strong by-the-book black guy and a cowboy who can’t make sense of the world off the battlefield). Many of the scenes were downright predictable (the shrink getting blown to bits was obvious from the first time he appeared on screen). And the ending felt grafted on from just about every war movie made since WWII. I found the movie mostly entertaining, with great cinematography and solid acting. If I just happened upon it, I would be relatively satisfied and then move on without giving it a second thought. But best picture of the year? Not by a long shot.
— NHCt · Mar 4, 05:07 PM · #
I went to see Hurt Locker months before it was nominated for an Oscar best picture, and months before anybody called it a “front-runner.” My initial reaction was the same as it was now – a film carried by excellent suspense that kept me on the edge of my seat, and … welllll…. that’s about it. An excellent exercise in suspense. “Is he gonna die? Is he gonna blow up?! Gee whizz, they just killed the star actors, so he’s gonna die too, right?”
The film was good. It may even be great. But it comes nowhere close to Pixar’s “Up,” which had all the suspense of “Hurt Locker” (as indeed did “Sin Nombre”), but also awesome storytelling that said Big Things about Life and could be enjoyed equally by children and grandparents alike.
So, yeah, while I liked “Hurt Locker,” I have to put up a hand in protest and say it ain’t even close to being the best film of the year.
— Billy Bob Tweed · Mar 4, 06:32 PM · #
Talk about seeing a movie before: Avatar was Dances with Wolves in Space.
I found the Hurt Locker put me in a tense place I hadn’t been before and told the story of one particular character extremely well.
It’s fiction, people.
I would not be sorry to see it get Best Picture, because I’d like to see a smaller, tighter movie win for once, but I wouldn’t mind if Inglorious Basterds won, either, just for the ending.
— Cam · Mar 4, 07:56 PM · #
What is wrong with our society that 8 years after this war started we still haven’t seen a movie that is both technically accurate and shows US soldiers in a positve manner? Saving Private Ryan jumped off from a historically accurate event and gave us a tight, action packed movie with fleshed out characters. The movie was one of the most accurate depictions of World War II combat even though everything after the D-Day scene was fiction.
Why can’t that movie be made about Iraq or Afghanistan?
— BrianF · Mar 4, 09:07 PM · #
Make things ‘more exciting?’ Jesus man, if you had a film that presented the Iraq war and the troops in the way they live their lives and fight their battles, you don’t think that would be exciting? The story needs to be hollywoodized to make it worth watching?
Nonsense. You illustrate well why war vets are pissed off.
— Jimmy Z · Mar 5, 05:58 AM · #
If a film was made that accurately depicted a soldier’s life, no one would go see it. Who wants to see a movie about hours of tedium bookended with moments of pants-wetting terror? An accurate depiction of war would have faces lying on the ground perfectly intact while the rest of the body is dismembered, discussions on whether or not to get a body tag tattoo, and decent people doing horribly fucked up things because that’s the only way they can survive.
No, fuck that. No one wants to see it. There will NEVER be an accurate war movie.
— Erik Vanderhoff · Mar 5, 08:16 PM · #
Whoda thought veterans could be such a whiny bunch? The reaction is just bizarre. Since when are war movies documentary accurate? Most of the WWII movies I grew up with seemed a bit corny even when I was a kid. And ridiculous now as an adult. But many are still classics.
I’ve wondered if the objection is perhaps a lack of heroic/political narrative. The movie does not seem to do any heavy handed war bashing or flag waving.
Seems to me the movie works because it spins a good yarn. Like every good fictional movie.
— shecky · Mar 5, 11:13 PM · #
Shecky: Whether or not the movies are fictional, if they are made to look like they occur on planet earth or any place with humanoid type characters, people will think the moviemakers were trying to send a message about the real world. And those who watch the movies will take away a message about the real world, even though they try mightily to remind themselves that they are just fiction.
Soviet filmmakers sometimes got by with social criticism by putting the movie in a science-fiction setting, but people still got the message, even though the movies were obviously fiction. (Sometimes the censors did, too. They weren’t always as dumb as they looked.)
What’s truly bizarre is complaining that somebody is complaining about it. So what I think I’ll do is whine about those who whine about the veterans being whiny.
BTW, I have no intention of watching the film. It’s very rare that there is an American movie I can stand to watch for more than a minute. I do try, once in a while.
— The Reticulator · Mar 7, 04:53 AM · #
Okay, being an OIF veteran I can pick at the movie all day long on accuracies and all the short comings that were made through out the length of the movie. The fact that they spent a large portion of the budget on Guy Pearce and David Morse, just to make appearances in the movie that didn’t last long at all. That might have made an effect on why they didn’t spend money on giving the EOD squad an escort by the QRF on the FOB. Yeah, there are some morons who leave the base somehow, but they all end up dead or traitors with family in theater. But it is just that, A MOVIE.
I’ve read on numerous sites that the movie doesn’t depict the title. BULL! It address the soldier and how the mind and heart is where the “Hurt” gets tucked away, much like the very locker we use in our gyms and our high schools and so on. The title fit the characters because they have seen and been through so much, that less than one percent (the actual percentage of Americans in the military service) of the American population can come to grasp and understand exactly what they feel. The movie addressed the title and the urges that many Soldiers, Marines, Sailors, and Airmen feel to do more. Feel that rush of when death breezes by and you survive.
Stop picking at the movie, get past all small stuff that the civilians were too lazy, underfunded or too unsure of to add to make it an accurate account of operations and policy. See past all that and you will see that the movie depicted the PTSD servicemen and women that refuse to admit that they have it because they feel they can do MORE.
— Mike C · Mar 9, 09:54 AM · #
Monet’s paintings are so unrealistic. They’re all fuzzy and out-of-focus! And Van Gogh? Gimme a break; stars don’t look anything like that! And have you ever seen that painting “The Scream”? It doesn’t look at all like a real person screaming.
— andrew · Mar 9, 06:28 PM · #
mike c. I think Morse and Pearce showed up as a personal favor to Bigelow. I don’t think they were paid much, if anything.
— al · Mar 10, 07:44 PM · #
Stop picking at the movie, get past all small stuff that the civilians were too lazy, underfunded or too unsure of to add to make it an accurate account of operations and policy. See past all that and you will see that the movie depicted the PTSD servicemen and women that refuse to admit that they have it because they feel they can do MORE.
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— fashion jewelry · Mar 14, 06:20 AM · #
“her shaky camera is meant to convey a sense of running alongside the squad, not the phony factual authenticity Mockenhaupt imagines.”
PLEASE. That documentary style is all about conveying authenticity!
All other comments aside, this is very telling: facts don’t matter, emotion and entertainment do! Atmosphere is everything. Very problemtic when you get down to it. The medium is the message indeed, but who can discern between the two when facts do not matter? We have unlimited funds and resources for entertainment, but stubbornly insist SOME FACTS DON’T MATTER. I guess I then ask, why can’t they be included?
“Because they do not make for good entertainment.”
There you go: entertainment trumps all. Sounds immoral to me.
— jm · Mar 15, 12:47 AM · #
So if I understand the argument correctly, the men who have been through war and don’t like to see it portrayed inaccurately should just shut up because people who haven’t been there think the inaccuracy is so spectacular as to be worthy of Hollywood’s highest honor? Such “arbitrary moralism”—what do details matter when Hollywood wants to feel good about how it is supporting the troops? They’ve done such a bang-up job with their portrayals of the Iraq conflict so far, I can’t imagine why Iraq veterans might mistrust their motives now.
— SR · Mar 15, 11:20 AM · #
I haven’t watched the “hurt locker”, but I watched the Avator.The visual effect of the Avator is fantastic indeed, but the plot is not as excellent as the image.As the hurt locker has won the oscar prize, I believe that there is something good there which deserve our appreciation. Anyhow, it’s a good movie at least. About the argument of its accuracy, we needn’t to take too much. It’s a movie instead of history.
— electronics · Mar 15, 01:47 PM · #