The Hurt Locker - HellcatBetty's Take

I hadn't gotten around to writing my thoughts on The Hurt Locker movie yet, but watching the Oscars tonight spurned me into action. For those who don't know, The Hurt Locker is a movie that focuses on Army EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) soldiers disarming bombs in Baghdad, Iraq in 2004. And it just won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

I watched the movie about a month and a half ago, and liked it. It's very emotional and you can feel the tension of the situations. Pictures I'd seen from my husband looked like the Iraq I was seeing on the screen, and I saw a bit of some of hubby's friends in the faces of the characters. On a personal level, I identified with a scene in which the main character (played by Jeremy Renner) goes home and he's standing in the cereal aisle at a grocery store staring at rows of boxes looking as if he wondered why any of it mattered. Hubs and I have had to leave grocery stores a couple times (mainly right after he returned from Afghanistan the last time) because he suddenly felt overwhelmed.

There were parts of it that I balked at because I knew they weren't realistic, but hey - that's Hollywood right? I hadn't given it a second thought until a few days ago when I got the chance to talk to hubby on the phone for about an hour (YAY!) and we discussed the movie. He had nothing good to say about it. He was irritated and offended and proceeded to tell me a laundry list of inaccuracies present in the film.

For starters, soldiers are wearing ACUs (the current uniform) throughout the movie, whereas in reality those uniforms were not yet standard issue in 2004. Seems like a simple thing that the film's producers could have sorted out pretty easily by consulting military personnel from the time period, hubby says. There was also a massive disregard for rank structure in the film, one scene in particular in which a soldier punched his superior in the face and no consequences were leveled. Anyone with remote knowledge of the military would understand - that wouldn't happen. One of hubby's biggest gripes was the way ground forces (i.e. Infantry) were depicted in the film. The scene in particular that actually offended him was one where the EOD arrived on scene and ground forces had abandoned their vehicle and were hiding out in the courtyard of a nearby home waiting for the EOD to get there and saunter up to the bombs and start cutting wires. As an Infantryman, hubby assured me that would never happen.

His list went on and on, and I began to consider that whether or not the film appeals to the viewer's emotions in a way that would inspire sympathy and gain a bit of understanding of what our men and women go through overseas, it may not be the way in which our soldiers wish to be represented. The inaccuracies were great enough that he couldn't see past them to find the merit in the film. For that, I certainly cannot blame him. The military is all about precision.

His comments and our discussion made me re-think my views on the movie. I watched the Oscars this evening with mixed feelings. I have to say that by the time it was announced that the film had won Best Picture, I was sort of disappointed. I re-watched the movie after the Awards ceremony ended and after having that conversation with the hubby, all I could see were instances that would never actually happen. A soldier running of the FOB (Forward Operating Base) to chase down the family of a little boy he'd thought had been killed, and then re-entering the base without being shot by friendly fire while running through the shadows. It just wouldn't happen... not by any stretch of the imagination.

So now, having talked to hubby and re-watched the movie myself, I am left with some conflicting feelings. I do believe that this film has its merits. It gets at the raw emotion and confusions and chaos that our men and women experience in battle. It gives viewers a mental image of what many of our soldiers have seen and heard and asks them to think about the situations from a perspective outside their own (often limited) knowledge of war. Above all, I think it forces the viewer to contemplate what it might be like to return from such intense situations, to a former life and choices that seem mundane and unimportant. It gives the viewer some insight into that man they see standing in the grocery store staring the rows of cereal.

That said, I do think that in some ways this movie does a disservice to our veterans in that it doesn't give an accurate portrayal of what they do or how they do it. The rank structure is ignored, the tactics they use are often completely off base, and the roles of various MOS's are either diminished or exaggerated. I can understand their concern, and their desire for a movie that can achieve the goals that The Hurt Locker does, but without misrepresenting their jobs and their lives in such significant ways.

TheAlbrechtSquad - Hurt Locker Review

I must start off mentioning that this review is a consolidation of thoughts from me and my husband who is a Soldier who has served over 20 years (dang that makes us sound old).

While many would probably tell me to ignore the little details, I happen to be a details person because I often find that those who don’t bother with the “little” things often miss the bigger, most important things. I had a notebook with me as I watched to capture some of the thoughts that crossed my mind.

Let me start off by saying that my husband acknowledged that they did a good job putting you on the streets of Iraq. The atmosphere was almost spot on. The way the children acted both loving and with hatred and the leering of the adults on the sides of the street. Very realistic. I also want to say I quite enjoyed the moments when you could feel the Soldiers and their sense of camaraderie and the need to take care of one another. That’s about where the realistic points of this movie ended for me.

Right from the beginning I noticed that they were all wearing ACUs. Since the story was supposed to have taken place in 2004, this is not realistic as ACUs were not being issued to all troops at that time. In fact, few had them, so the fact that everyone in the movie was wearing ACUs shows me that someone did not do a lot of research there. Oh and the sleeves don’t get rolled up on the ACUs the way the Soldiers had them. They don’t get folded/rolled up at all.

Something else that caught my eye almost immediately was the fact that SGT Sanborn was wearing a Combat Infantry Badge (CIB). I thought that a little odd as an EOD tech but gave the benefit of the doubt that maybe he had reclassed (how is that for imagination!). Well later in the movie while he was chatting with SFC James, he mentioned that before becoming an EOD tech he had served for 7 years in the Military Intelligence field. He was not authorized a CIB. A detail like that is very important to me.

I thought it was ridiculous that 3 Soldiers were running around the streets of Baghdad alone. That is not logical or realistic. Throw in when SFC James goes to try and find out about the young Iraqi boy who was killed and he is running through the streets alone. I had a good chuckle over that.

I greatly dislike that they had the drinking scene. I’ll be real, it has happened over there but to that extreme, not likely. Along with that, the SGT punching his superior, stupid. The ego on that SFC, in a job like EOD, confidence is a must but there isn’t much room for cockiness, it’s a good way to get yourself killed.

I have to admit I had high expectations for this movie, after hearing from so many people that it was the best war movie to date and so real. I have heard that from both military personal and civilians alike. Unfortunately I was disappointed and my husband was disappointed. It’s a good action flick, for those who care not about the little details in regards to the military aspect, it’s worth your money. For those hoping that someone would finally get “it” right, wait until you get a code for a free rental at one of those Redbox machines.

The Albrecht Squad

http://thealbrechtsquad.blogspot.com/

"As for me and my family, we will serve the Lord and our Country"

Tucker's Take: The Hurt Locker

Hmmm. I'm not really sure where to start with this one. I am rather conflicted... there are my feelings towards the movie as a whole, my feelings about the nitty gritty details, and (I think) more importantly my feelings about how Baghdad 2004-ish shaped my husband. And I will fully admit that, with my husband currently deployed, emotions are running high for me.

See, my husband was there around the time this movie was set (earlier if you want to get more precise). I have heard his tales of what it was like... the streets, the filth, the civilians, the kids, the gunfights erupting out of nowhere on a daily basis. On this front, I felt like the movie put me on those streets, it created the world that my husband has spoken of, the one that I always tried to picture but never could get right. I felt the tension and anxiety and paranoia (often completely warranted) and the fear and the bravado and the constantly conflicting emotions. I felt the camraderie and the anguish and the chaos and I saw each character trying to find any way to cope. I watched as young men faced their own mortailty, sometimes responding with all the swagger of John Wayne on steroids, sometimes pulling so far into themselves they needed help coming back. I felt like the movie, as well as it could in it's setting (combat), did a good job capturing the spectacular array of emotions, the vast ways they cope, the things they do to get by, they ways they struggle to connect with the outside world.

It did a great job getting me to think. Think about what it was like for my soldier (we weren't together at that time, it was a tough deployment that ended with more than a few of his soldiers & friends KIA and a Purple Heart for my husband). How did he cope? Was the the calm, cool-headed one? The risky one, because his life back home was imploding? Was he by the books or playing by his own rules? Was he the one who retreated into himself? The one riddled with fear or guilt? Or the one who put on the brave face or dolled out the jokes? What was it really like for him? On this front- I think the movie was a HUGE success. Emotionally, it was subtle but complex (so many things were conveyed in an almost covert manner, a few phrases, a look, or a gesture were abe to speak volumes, I was impressed by this), varied and seemingly authentic. It was true to the fact that not all soldiers are alike, they deal with their own issues in ways to varied to list, not all have emotional struggles, and not all are John Wayne, some want out, some want back in the fight. Our Armed Forces take all kinds, and are, ultimately, more successful for it.

Now, I don't know any EOD guys. Nor can I speak to the autenticity of the EOD specific parts of the movie. But I did appreciate that there wasn't a cheesy, swelling soundtrack to up the drama. It was dramatic enough on its own and I'm glad they respected that. I was grateful that the explosions weren't over the top and that there weren't any ridiculous special effects. I was pleased that they touched on the relationships with the locals that are sometimes formed, the connections that are made with the people and the country they are fighting for. I was also very glad they touched on how surreal it is for soldiers to come home. 365 days of near death, constant threat, adrenaline, fear, bravery, insanity- and then *poof*- you are faced with the cereal isle in the grocery store. That is real. And that is, often, a huge issue for many returning soldiers. How do you go from one to the other in the 48 hours it takes to fly home?

What also struck me was how unnatural it is for young men (and women) to be facing death with such intensity. I can't imagine how being intimately and acutely aware of your own mortality at such a young age colors the choices you make. Does it make you more wreckless (is that why SSG James is the way he is?)? Or does it make you more cautious? Does it make you reassess your priorities (like SGT Sanborn)? Or does it simply change who you are at your very core? Most people don't face their mortality so frankly until they are much older and wiser, after their big life choices are made. How do you deal with this when you are barely drinking age, newly married, or just out of college? How?

Lastly, the thing that will stick with me most was what SSG James said at the end, "...the older you get the fewer things you love...". Part of me disagrees, and part of me thinks that truer words have rarely been spoken. I do think, the older you get, the more focused your love gets. The silly things do fade away, the little things don't matter as much, and the big thing(s) crystalize and pull away from the others. But your capacity to love, I think, increases if you choose to let it in... maybe combat changes that, I can't say. Yes, there are guys like him, who are both selfish and selfless, who love the combat, the job, the rush, the Army (et al) more than anything else. And honestly, I'm grateful for them, because they are the ones walking into the fight as everyone else is running out. Where would be we without guys like that?

Yes, there are little things like ACUs on every soldier (most guys were still in DCUs in 2004) and other things that I can't 100% speak to because I'm not the expert. But overall, I would definatley recommend this movie, if only to get you thinking about the emotional complexities of war without the prototypical "Vet/Soldier on the Brink of a PTSD Meltdown" cloud cast over the characters. But also because I think this is Hollywood's best recent attempt to get it right. It isn't 100% there, but its a whole lot closer than anything else I've seen.