Oh look at the soldiers, their job is hard but they keep doing it. Feel bad for the soldiers. Feel bad for the black guy who starts crying and says he can't take it anymore. I liked this at first but looking back this is melodramatic Oscar bait and did not deserve the Oscar. At least it isn't as laughable a win as Slumdog Millionaire was.
share[deleted]
It doesn't really matter when it as released. The film is an incredibly sappy rehash of 'the effects of war on man' theme and apparently strives to not be politically motivated, but as such, becomes even more laughable for it. "Yeah, I'm not anti-Iraq-war AT ALL, I'm just saying, the troops have it super hard and war has dehumanizing effects". How sensical, original and impressive of you to wing a new war movie about the Iraq war to make it only about the dehumanizing effects of war (and then adamantly maintain your support for the war you depict). You sure couldn't have done that with just about ANY OTHER WAR, and the Iraq war definitely isn't one that SHOULD or COULD be politically shot to pieces, oh no. The movie that is supposed to feel ambiguous and unbiased comes off actually feeling naively patriotic.
share[deleted]
Don't you see what I'm saying? The Hurt Locker heavy-handedly (edit:) TRIES to get you to feel sorry for the troops and that's all it does. 'heavy-handedly' means it's abusing its subject; it doesn't do it in an original way and has no subtlety. So you have that, a movie that heavily leans against war in general in an unoriginal, predictable way, then you have (I still haven't mentioned the glaring errors of realism, and the fact that the sniper scene is totally ripping off of Jarhead) Bigelow making sure to maintain that the film is not anti-Iraq-war. But how can you not be anti-Iraq-war if you are anti-war in general? This is an idiotic discrepancy. Apocalypse Now was (1) way more creative and (2) different because Vietnam was a more ambiguous war. Had a director like Francis Ford Coppola made a film about the Iraq war they would be unafraid to consider getting political. Bigelow's decision displays a filmmaker with no guts who has catered to the American public. Bloated, heavy handed, and inconsequential, the film falls flat on its @ss and ends up being not much more than a 'Support our troops' bumper sticker. I was called pretentious for not liking this film, but I think if anything the film is a little pretentious for only using the subject of the Iraq war to say something about war in general, which has been done in many other films and done better, with that ambition followed through with substance.
share[deleted]
It's not heavy handed at all. Lions for Lambs, Rendition and that other Iraq war movie I don't remember its name are heavy handed. And that's what a director's job is, to make you feel something for the characters, to have empathy for them. Do you not know anything about films.
There's a difference between an anti-Iraq war and anti war. Anti-Iraq war is against the politics and the reasons for going into Iraq. Anti war is criticizing war in general.
There's no way this is bloated, I wouldn't be able to find 1 scene in this where I thought it should've been on the cutting room floor.
That doesn't make any sense at all
Yeah people keep mentioning that here and they always get proven wrong.
[deleted]
Hahaha nice troll comment void of any substance. You're just not understanding what I'm saying.
shareIt's only morons who still regard this so highly. I thought it was good at first, but looking back their isn't any lasting depth. It's definitely too heavy handed and not good enough as it is, only relying on the anti-war theme. The whole thing really does just boil down to a support our troops bumper sticker and then that's it; it feels so inconsequential. So it's already bad. Then on top of that, Bigelow even maintains that the film is not against the Iraq war. Shallow, shallow, inconsequential film. For all I know, Zero Dark Thirty can suck my balls also.
shareWow, your last post is an intellectual train wreck.
You said it only relies on the anti-war theme, but that it's also a support our troops bumper sticker. Later, you call out Bigelow for saying it's not anti-Iraq.
Make up your mind. Does the movie have one theme or several? Is it anti-war, or is it "support the troops"?
The funniest thing is that "support the troops" or anti-war are OBVIOUSLY not the theme of the movie anyway. That's why there's the "war is a drug" message right at the start. Few movies are this obvious about the message, but you missed it anyway.
Also, you haven't said how the movie is heavy-handed, you just keep repeating that it is.
Lastly, being anti-war works pretty well as a theme. That's why movies or books like Platoon, On The Beach, All Quiet On The Western Front, Catch-22, Paths of Glory, Grand Illusion, The Deer Hunter, Das Boot, Stalingrad and so many others still endure.
Notice how he didn't respond back to you? Haha.
shareEasy..... to make???
shareAny movie, novel, play, series can be reduced to a laughable, single-dimension idea. Some studio execs as well as other types of clowns do it all the time. Perhaps that is why many movies are exactly that. It takes a great filmmaker, crew and actors to take a small idea and bring out the depth of humanity that truly resides in a simple idea.
Hurt Locker is a fully realized work of art. Like all great art, each viewer sees something different in it. Small people see their own smallness and therefore despise the work. Many people see far more.
@Mama - agree, very well said :)
“Think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too.” - Voltaire.