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Monthly Archives: July 2009
The Hurt Locker
“The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug,” states a quote from war correspondent Chris Hedges at the beginning of “The Hurt Locker.”
The action-packed war film set in Iraq in 2004 is a hair-raising adrenaline rush that follows three members of Bravo Company’s bomb disposal unit as they work to defuse a series of IEDs, or roadside bombs, in the streets of Iraq, all the while trying not to be picked off by insurgent gunfire.
There’s Spec. Owen Elderidge (Brian Geraghty), who’s a bundle of nerves and seemingly out of his element, and Sgt. J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), a professional who follows protocols and procedures in the best hope of getting out alive.
Then there’s Staff Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner), a replacement to the unit’s previous bomb-technician leader who is killed in an explosion. James comes off initially as a cocky bastard considered “reckless” by the others and hell-bent on a death wish. But he also has what it takes to disarm even the most sinister bombs, and in time a more caring side of him comes through.
The film follows the threesome unit as they start a 38-day rotation on a handful of nerve-racking missions, wherein James’s disengaging of bomb wires is undoubtedly the scariest moments to watch. Renner gives a gripping performance as Staff Sgt. James, the risk-taker and adrenaline junkie whose disregard for protocol rubs the others raw.
“The Hurt Locker” is a powerful film due to its authenticity and its script. Written by journalist Mark Boal, who was embedded in Iraq with a bomb squad, and shot close to the Iraq border in Jordan, the film plunges viewers into feeling what war is like, and the risks soldiers take. Except for small roles by Ralph Fiennes and Guy Pierce, the other actors in it are relative unknowns, and don’t distract from the film’s realistic war story and look. I found “The Hurt Locker” quite intense and effective, but for those who don’t care for men and war films, it’s perhaps not meant for everyone. Continue reading
Posted in Movies
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Shutter Island
This 2003 suspense novel has one of those twisted endings that make you want to throw it against a wall after you’re done. It seemed to be going along just fine, slowly building in momentum, taking you on a steady course of suspense to its conclusion and then thunk: an ending so opposite of where you want it to go it sets you off to curse that you ever got it.
I had picked up “Shutter Island” because I heard it was coming out as a movie in October 2009 with Leo DiCaprio and directed by Martin Scorsese, and because Dennis Lehane wrote it and his other novels “Gone, Baby, Gone” (1998) and “Mystic River” (2001) became somewhat intriguing movies.
Set in 1954, the story begins as U.S. Marshals Teddy Daniels and Chuck Aule are called to investigate the disappearance of a patient at a hospital for the criminally insane on Shutter Island, off the Massachusetts coast. Daniels, whose beloved wife died in a fire two years prior, has ulterior reasons for taking the case, notably finding the insane criminal housed there who caused her death.
Soon though the deputy marshals find that the medical staff at Shutter Island, especially the director, is stonewalling their investigation, and they discern that radical, illegal treatments are being administered to the patients as part of a secret program. (For other novels on nefarious experimentation taking place on islands, you might also recall: “The Island of Dr. Moreau” (1896), “Dr. No” (1958) and “Plum Island” (1997) to name just a few.)
“Shutter Island” picks up steam as a hurricane hits, cutting off communication to the mainland and enabling more insane patients to escape from their cells. Aule disappears, and Daniels believes he’s being slipped psychotic drugs. He makes a dash to leave the island but is intercepted. As clues unravel, he begins to doubt everything, including his memory, his partner and his sanity.
Lehane gives the book a surreal and really creepy kind of ending, but it’s sort of just lame and leaves you wanting something else. Perhaps they will do better with the movie, which has an all-star cast (even Ben Kingsley and Patricia Clarkson!), and of course, also Scorsese who’s directed “Cape Fear”-freaky-kind of suspense movies before. Continue reading
Posted in Books
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