USA Today on How Vets Feel About The Hurt Locker
USA Today has run an article that discusses how many veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have different opinions on the accuracy and quality of the movie The Hurt Locker. The author of article, Gregg Zoroya, does an excellent job of gauging veterans’ responses to the movie, presenting an array of opinions including those of Army of Dude and Bouhammer, who are both quoted in the article. I highly encourage you all to read the article, it is one of the few times the MSM has done a good job of reporting on how vets feel about a particular issue (albeit not a very important one).
I personally enjoyed The Hurt Locker and thought it got a lot of things right about Americans in Iraq. In particular, I enjoyed how the movie mostly stayed out of the politics and how the insurgents were portrayed for exactly what they are: a bunch of savages who don’t care who they harm or kill in their strive to attain their goals. I felt that generally EOD’s mission was properly portrayed (a couple ridiculous adventures notwithstadning) and the opening scene in my opinion was a dead-on accurate depiction of how an EOD mission usually works.
Of course there were many technical errors (involving everything from uniforms to rank) and ridiculous side-stories that involved EOD doing everything from helping private military contractors kill a sniper to the EOD team leader running alone through the streets of Baghdad at night. But you got to remember that this is a Hollywood movie, and there will always be a dramatic license taken with war movies.
Overall, compared to the other trash that has come about Iraq, the Hurt Locker is a good war movie and the first real decent portrayal of Americans in Iraq by Hollywood.
Category: Bloggers, Foreign Policy, Terror War
I actually did research before I watched the movie. I wanted to see how our soldiers felt about it first. I thought it was pretty good too, keeping in mind it is Hollywood.
I ordered the movie on cable pay-per-view last night and watched. Color me underwhelmed.
The movie was good, but I don’t see what the Oscar buzz is all about. Sure there was plenty to pick at from a technical point of view, but the movie didn’t really grab me either.
It seemed to be a bunch of little vignettes all loosely tied together by the lead character, but even that left more loose ends then it solved.
Don’t quite get the purpose for instance of having a COL drive up in a HMMV, dismount, and give some sort of macho bullshit lines to the lead character only to leave and never be seen again, back into the void from whence he appeared. I was scratching my head for a while after that.
Yeah EOD clearing a house without Infantry support is thin, and in yet another scene of a bombing in the Green Zone, even after one of the other characters tells him there are three platoons of grunts whose job it is to clear the enemy waiting, the decision is made to pursue some suspected insurgents through the streets.
I don’t know. I wasn’t impressed by the movie, it didn’t seem to build to any dramatic peak and at the end I was left asking what was I supposed to take away from it.
Oh and can somebody tell me just exactly what it was at the beginning that killed the bomb tech who was wearing all of his gear yet left civilians much closer to the blast unscathed?
I enjoyed this movie immensely. Yes it’s pure Hollywood, not totally accurate, (Geeze would they stop calling him an SSG, he’s wearing SFC rank for crying out loud), but considering the tripe that’s come out of Hollywood with regards to Iraq, Stop Loss, Valley of Elah, Redacted, Lions for Lambs, this is a Tour De Force of a movie.
If you want to see a good movie, watch “Taking Chance” with Kevin Bacon. If you’ve seen it you know what I am talking about, if you haven’t rent it and watch it.
I agree Taking Chance is awesome.
I enjoyed the movie, like other said, no political rants. The biggest problem I had with the movie was how they drove around by themselves. I was a PSG for a Scout PLT tasked with EOD escort for about 4 months back in fall of 06. Granted, they were Navy EOD, but they did a good job. They never went anyplace without us escorting them there. Also, they used robots for everything. They even had us carry a back up robot for the back up they carried in their truck. Never once sall them put on the bomb suit.
[…] Hope on over to TaH and read the rest. […]