The Hurt Locker

Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker is one of the finest films of 2009 and probably deserves to win the Oscar. I think the film is excellent on several levels. It is a suspenseful procedural portrayal of an elite unit’s life and death work. It is also a very accurate portrayal of the life of soldiers in hostile countries. It is also a psychological examination of an adrenaline junkie who finds it hard to live in the confines of normal society where the mundane is the status quo. It could also operate as a very subtle anti-war film, in that the senseless death and psychological effects of an insurgent war are effective played out on the screen. I would say that it is required viewing.