Comments on: Life during wartime

By: The Hurt Locker’s Addiction to Detachment, and Ours « zunguzungu

The Hurt Locker’s Addiction to Detachment, and Ours « zunguzungu — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 15:17:59 +0000

[...] it’s a great film, first of all; its characters are fairly tired war-movie clichés (another cowboy who gets results? really?), its ticking time-bomb scenarios are suspenseful in almost the cheapest way possible [...]

By: m

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:58:01 +0000

Oh that post is great. Thanks. Communal action (and hierarchies of command) make the military work (as well as Starfleet, Abrams!). This movie wasn’t about being a soldier; it was about being a COWBOY.

By: sepoy

sepoy — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:21:59 +0000

I was left rather cold by the movie. Maybe I have had enough Warrior Ethos to last me a lifetime. But you see this?
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/essay-15/

By: links for 2010-02-28 « Rumblegumption

links for 2010-02-28 « Rumblegumption — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:34:18 +0000

[...] Life during wartime [...]

By: m

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:30:21 +0000

He wasn’t a mercenary. He was a private military contractor. Mercenaries aren’t on our side, you see.

Narratively, I see what that scene did, in that it brought James and Stanton together while showing how James could be an effective leader in how he handled Eldridge. But other than that, I have no idea.

By: thecompass

thecompass — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:40:37 +0000

i didn’t actually have a very strong reaction to _hurt locker_. maybe you’re right that the mundanity was the point, but everything felt one-dimensional, and not in an interesting way. my one question: what on earth was ralph fiennes doing as the english mercenary? did his stint in _the english patient_ make him long for more time in the desert and a head scarf?

By: m

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 14:48:07 +0000

What I mean by “the payoff” above is that I’m glad that the movie does not punch above its weight. It is not the case that James uncovers some kind of huge insurgent plot or penetrates the central insurgent command (as if such a thing existed). That grounds the movie more in the everyday and pitches the roles of the characters (in the Army) as more of parts of the everyday.

Another question, regarding the obnoxiously named Dr. Cambridge: was everyone else struck by the warning implicit in his explosion? It’s a one-two punch of “eggheads don’t belong in the field” and “try to treat the Iraqis like humans and you’ll blow up.” The very obvious way in which the US is an occupying force in the movie was interesting (and maybe unusual).