Review – The Hurt Locker

The first act of this movie is a little like playing with a Jack-in-the-box with a broken music maker. You turn the crank, but without “Pop Goes the Weasel” to tell you when it’s going to pop, the game turns into a delightfully nerve-wrecking experience. Watching members of an ordinance disposal team do their jobs with IEDs in Iraq is a lot like that. The picture establishes early on that just because someone’s a big star with a recognizable face doesn’t make him immune from being blown up, which creates an anyone-can-die-at-any-time feeling that works quite well given the subject at hand. Unfortunately, after the first two or three bomb defusings the picture suddenly turns into a parade of implausible plot twists and cheap war movie clichés. I know they couldn’t very well have made an entire picture out of nothing but defusing scenes, but what they did with the rest of the picture didn’t come close to living up to the good parts. Mildly amusing