The Hurt Locker = Visceral

After the hilarious Brüno movie going experience Friday night, I drove across metro Phoenix Saturday night to the only arts movie theater in this city of 4 million denizens to see The Hurt Locker. I thought I might have a beer or stop by a club after the 10:30pm showing of the movie ended (130 min run time).

Children of Men, Schindler's List, Hotel Rwanda, all sucked the evening's jovial energy out of me, and my buddy Ryan (when he and I went to see Schindler's in ATL years ago), and Dr Desert Flower back in 2006 in Greenville. Kathryn Bigelow has directed an intense, visceral, consuming window into daily life in Iraq. Mark Boal's (who spent time embedded in Iraq) script is pretty good, but in places, drops into movie-going impossible fictionality that didn't really 'test believable boundaries', as much as it trounced them with Hollywood emotional characterizations in the extreme. Had Boal and Bigelow toned down the 'unconventional rebel' aspects of the protagonist, just a few percentage points, I'd say this was an incredible movie experience. As it was, it is a good movie going experience, that opens up the eyes of the viewer. I require healthy doses of realism, in my paradigm, to fully embed myself into the movie.

Should be required viewing for every Chicken Hawk who votes to send troops into war zones.