Angela Jan 13, 2010
Finally got to check this out today. Loved it; an excellent film that deserves all the accolades it's been getting. AICN's Henry Krinkle sums it up pretty well:
"Plot-wise, there's not much to report. The film has sort of a loose, episodic structure that was, for me, reminiscent of Sam Fuller's The Big Red One. It's just a story of a group of guys (in this case, a three member bomb squad team in Iraq) going about their day to day, trying to stay alive until it's time to go home. No identifiable villain, no mission, so no real forward plot momentum. These three soldiers (all played by actors I wasn't at all familiar with) spend their days defusing the wide range of improvised explosive devices littering the streets of occupied Iraq, and we just follow them in their daily work.
[Director Kathryn Bigelow] uses the Iraq situation to craft a good old fashioned war movie, one that's largely devoid of politics, but filled with plenty of tension, action, and some well-drawn characters. The tension bleeds into every scene; Bigelow does a great job creating a constant sense of impending danger, where every pile of garbage or parked car is a potential bomb, and every Iraqi is a potential bomber or gunman. You feel this basically from the very first scene to the very last."
What I liked best about the film was how varied the set pieces were. Each mission called for a different course of action, lending an air of necessary immediacy, and unpredictability to every situation. Some of the more memorable ones break away from the bomb-defusing, including an enduring long-range sniper battle, and an on-foot chase at night. It's a tough movie to watch in places, particularly during one unflinchingly gory extraction sequence, but it remains poignant and riveting throughout.
