Adding The Hurt Locker: A Review
Posted on | February 22, 2010 | 1 Comment
In my typical revisionistic fashion, I’ve rewritten my list of “Best Produced Screenplays of 2009” after finally watching The Hurt Locker.
My Top 8 now becomes a Top 9. I didn’t bump anybody off the list because they’re all stellar work. But at the same time, I didn’t put Kathryn Bigelow’s intense drama (about a U.S. Army bomb squad unit) in the Top 5.
Why? It just didn’t blow me away (pun totally intended). Don’t get me wrong: I thought it was quite powerful. And critics lavished it with all sorts of honors (i.e. Writers Guild Award for Best Original Screenplay), but I felt the screenplay didn’t provide much an arc for the main character, Staff Sgt. William James, played by Jeremy Renner. He starts off as a cocky cowboy-in-fatigues figure and — save for a subplot about him befriending a locale Iraqi boy — he pretty much ends the movie in exactly the same fashion.
Almost no change. Nothing learned. Zero character development.
In my book, that’s not Top 5 screenwriting material. But still, the script by Mark Boal offers plenty of good things: a strong supporting cast, an exotic setting, a timely subject, and an intrinsically butt-clenching premise (a gung-ho bomb specialist takes over an Explosive Ordinance Disposal squad and clashes with his by-the-book subordinates in the midst of roadside bombs, insurgent snipers, and unrelentingly harsh Iraqi environment.
Some of the praise should go to Bigelow, who does an amazing job of capitalizing on the hair-raising tension and mind-numbing lulls (much like real-life military life) with her mix of documentary style camerawork and slow-mo visuals.
But then again, that’s why both Bigelow and Boal received Oscar nominations in their respective categories, eh?
Tags: Academy Award > Kathryn Bigelow > Mark Boal > Oscars > The Hurt Locker
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March 19th, 2010 @
[...] Mark drew from his experiences as a journalist embedded with a real Iraq War bomb squad unit.) But, as I wrote previously, I was left wanting a stronger character arc (as the hero doesn’t learn anything by the end [...]