The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker won best picture at the Academy Awards a few weeks ago. I can't agree with the Academy on that one... at all...

Here are a few comments from the web that sum up my thoughts pretty well:

"Hollywood's version of the Iraq war and of the soldiers who fight it, and their version is inaccurate."-- Kate Hoit, the Huffington Post

"The Hurt Locker is a high-tension, well-made, action movie that will certainly keep most viewers on the edges of their seats. But if you know anything about the Army, or about operations or life in Iraq, you'll be so distracted by the nonsensical sequences and plot twists that it will ruin the movie for you. It certainly did for me." --Brandon Friedman, VetVoice

"the way the team goes about their missions is completely absurd" --blogger Alex Horton

"I was amazed that a movie so bad could get any kind of accolades from anyone." --blogger Troy Steward

....and my personal favorite from DefenseTech: "Some of the scenes are so disconnected with reality to be almost parody." (Like when the E-5 buck sergeant punches his E-7 "team leader" in the mouth without any fallout or consequences!)

I think the production team should have hired a better military consultant if they even hired one at all. The fact that a film like that could win Best Picture, and in doing so, extend some of the inflated Hollywood notions of how to portray the military, is really troubling to me!