The Hurt Locker (Do people even see the same world?)

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

I finally watched The Hurt Locker.

I recall, back when it was up for best picture, that some people said the ending was self-consciously patriotic or pro-war because the guy re-enlisted.

It was said that it won best picture because it wasn't just another "anti-war" movie.

That much is true. It is not at all political, though is anti-war in the way any non-propaganda war film is anti-war because war is always horrible.

But the idea that there is some pro-war or patriotic message in the guy re-enlisting... WTF?

The guy re-enlists because there is something profoundly wrong with him, psychiatrically. He determines that he has no interest in normal American life, does not love his wife or even love his infant son and only loves one thing -- the adrenaline high of Iraq.

That's not my lefty interpretation... it is overt. Stated. Unambiguous in the film.



So what on Earth were people watching?

:shrug:

[bluerum]

1. Sometimes you have to wonder. Are people really that self delusional.

It's like that bawdy old saying - ' you wouldn't know a good time if it fell out of the sky, sat on your face and started to spin'.

Except in this case it is a guy having a psychotic break up.

[knowbody0]

2. it's all perspective I guess

I did not get that he did not love his family enough, but rather that he simply could no longer function in their world, having the equivilant of a panic attack in the store. also, re-inlisting paid a cash bonus for his family.

the film was excellent.

[Marr]

3. He has that monologue with the baby, where he says when you're

young, you love everything, but after awhile you only love a couple of things. Then maybe just one thing. Then he leaves. I think the OP's interpretation was about right, personally.

[demmiblue]

4. I think he also realized that he was a wrecked and ruined man that would never be 'normal' ...

in his own mind. He saw what happened to the one innocent that he connected with. In this innocent, I believe he saw his own child. He knew that he would never get over the damage that was done by 'the drug of war' to his psyche, and did not want it to be revisited upon his own child. To me, it was almost like a suicide mission.

That is how I took it, anyway.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. not pro war at all nt

[wmbrew0206]

6. The main character is not damaged. And he does not suffer a panic attack in the grocery store.

The film maker just does a great job in showing how military service member get use to living in austere conditions and operating in life or death situations. When they come home they have to readjust to living a fairly mundane existence compared to what they were use to.

That is what the cereal scene at the grocery store was all about. In Iraq, you have there is only one choice of fruit loops and not ten. The idea that there is a "wrong" kind of fruit loop is ridiculous over there, where in the US it is perfectly reasonable if you expect to have that many choices.

You are also missing the main reason why the main character returned to Iraq. It is not "the adrenaline high"it offered or he doesn't want a normal life, it is the fact that there were men and women being killed by IED's and he not only had the skill set to stop it, but was also one of the best at it. Knowing you have the ability to save lives but are not because you want to be stateside, causes those with that ability a lot of guilt. If that movie had taken place now (and there was no Afghanistan), the main character would not have gone back to Iraq and would probably stayed in the US, since there was not a great need anymore for EOD.

[Marr]

7. I saw nothing that suggested he felt guilt for not saving people from IED's.

He seemed to have very little concern even for the men around him, in fact. He risked their lives when he needn't do so, seemingly trying to get himself killed.

His return to Iraq at the end of the movie seemed to suggest to me that this wasn't the first time he'd returned, and put all of his prior reckless behavior into context.

[wmbrew0206]

11. It is there. It is when he is talking to his wife near the end saying something like "There are

a lot of guys getting hurt over there and not a lot of EOD techs." I don't remember the exact quote, but it was something like that. It showed that he felt that he could be doing greater good back in Iraq than staying in the US.

There was a lot in that movie that was complete BS, so I just tuned a lot of it out. Several things jump out: 1. When the full bird Colonel looks at some soldier and says "We don't take prisoners" and then you hear a pistol fired at a detainee. 2. When the three main characters start off after the big oil tanker VBIED by themselves. 3. When the team is out by themselves during a controlled det. None of these things would ever happen and if they did, everyone involved would be fired or dead.

The story and characters needed to be exaggerated to be able to allow the public to understand it. If a EOD tech did half of the stuff that guy did he would have been relieved. As would a lot of the actions of most of the other characters. So take the lengths the characters go to with a large grain of salt.

[leeroysphitz]

8. Did you just give away the ending without giving a spoiler notice?

:spank:

[nadinbrzezinski]

9. Some folks have a view that the military is horrible

and destroys people. Well the movie made the point, but they could not bring themselves to see that. So the other is the Iraqis

This is our modern-day full metal jacket.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

10. There are people who thought Archie Bunker was a great spokeman

Perspective......

[Bluenorthwest]

12. I agree with you about the film...

Many times a film gets judged by the standard of what the audience member expected or wanted to see rather than what the film really is. Lots of people on DU wanted this to be another movie, a movie about Iraqis and about the criminal invasion or whatever. They had expectations. People have similar issues around Oliver Stone's 'W' and also his World Trade Center. Both are excellent but many people wanted World Trade to be a 'JFK' type truther film, and they wanted 'W' to be a diatribe rather than a portrait. Hurt Locker and W have much in common in that regard, because people were not able to just look at the creature and know it, they wanted the creature to drip blood and wail in pain.
A film should be that which it sets out to be, as best as it possibly can. People wanted the Hurt Locker to be about Abu Ghaib and Dick Cheney, but it simply isn't. They wanted it to point at facts rather than simply show them.
The Hurt Locker is a great movie.

[BoneDaddy]

13. Is it ever anything other than perception?

It is ALWAYS about perception. Every side thinks they are correct, regardless of how irrational it may be. The people on Free Republic are every bit as sure as themselves as those on DU, and each one of the collective US is TOTALLY SURE of our position. Sure we can argue faith vs reason, but in the end it does not matter because rarely have I seen any side be swayed by another's rationale. I am NOT saying that science does not trump archaic religious values, I am just saying that it doesn't matter because people will believe what they want to believe and will justify it to the hilt. It is only in the most dire of circumstances that extreme positions are abandoned.

[mr_liberal]

14. I havent seen the movie, but

if it was pro-war at all it wouldn't have won the Oscar. Hollywood is monolithically liberal.

[Mortos]

16. I don't think Oliver Stone's Academy Award Winning Platoon

was pro-war.

[Iterate]

20. John Wayne disagrees

and Dirty Harry is miffed. If Hollywood (whatever that is) is monotonically anything, it is pro-money.

[RZM]

15. Agree with your interpreation completely

Seems to be attempting to portray the war as it was and not trying to say it was good or bad. I thought it was interesting that it caught a lot of criticism for being unrealistic in many ways but also quite accurate in terms of interactions between Americans and Iraqis (sort of like how the Deer Hunter's scenes in Vietnam were ridiculous but veterans liked the 'coming home' scenes). On first viewing I was a bit underwhelmed -- didn't quite see what the hype was about. But I re-watched about 30 minutes of it on Showtime last week and noticed that it's pretty well-made.

[Greyhound]

17. After al the hype, I was stunned at how ordinary it was.

I was expecting some great breakthrough film but got another mediocre war film with all the production value of a CNN expose on restaurant health code violations.

[cherokeeprogressive]

18. I disagree that there was anything "profoundly wrong with him".

You can't put people in extreme situations and expect them to remain "normal" (as IF there could be a textbook definition of "normal" for over six billion people) when they come out on the other side.

Imagine a situation where your every judgment could result in not only your death but the death of others. Imagine it happening every day for a year. Dozens of times per day. Which wire to cut? How may other bombs may be within feet of where you are? Is that dead dog in the road just that, or might it be filled with explosives that could detonate while you're driving by?

Then imagine yourself standing in front of a rack of cereal boxes, trying to decide which cereal might make your kid the happiest without rotting their teeth.

In the end, it has nothing to do with being American. Nothing at all.

[JCMach1]

21. Exactly, he has found his place and he does have the self-knowledge of just how f'ed up that is

...

on another note, I thought it was one of the weakest movies to win best picture in recent years. Of course, this is the same academy who gave us Crash.

[proteus_lives]

19. You missed the point as well.

[aikoaiko]

22. I took it as the war made him the way he was... not that war is a thrill ride.

Truly, I thought it was an average movie in most ways, I didn't it was the movie you described.