The Hurt Locker is a worthy film, and I hope it wins the Oscar Best Picture award. Unusually, for a leading nominee, it's already out in DVD--I rented it from Netflix, and the link is to Amazon.com. That's a measure of how badly it did in theaters, while The Avatar packed them in. One sighs for the future of America!
Except for the customary and almost reflexive distaste for the place in which they find themselves ("I hate this fucking country!"), the film and its heroes have nothing to say about the long-running combat in Iraq. In this, it oddly reminded me of Japanese films about that country's long war--not only postwar ones like The Burmese Harp, but also films made during the 1931-1941 entanglement in China. The war is simply there, like the landscape. Even when we ignore it, it continues.
Indeed, so convinced was I that events were simply unfolding in front of me that I never noticed that one of the British headhunters encountered midway was played by Ralph Fiennes. The encounter was improbable, but the long-distance battle that ensued was utterly convincing. Blue skies! -- Dan Ford
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