Richard Roeper Blog

Here’s my review of “The Hurt Locker” from last summer…

“The Hurt Locker” A+

“The Hurt Locker” is a war film set in present-day Iraq, but it is not about the war in Iraq.

It is about the universal soldier who becomes addicted to war. It is about war as a drug. It is about a man who goes home and is utterly lost in the grocery store—-but completely comfortable dodging enemy fire and defusing bombs in brutal, hostile conditions.

It is a searing, unforgettable film filled with unbearably tense set pieces and first-rate performances.

Director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal (who was embedded with a U.S. bomb-disposal squad in Iraq in 2004) have fashioned a gritty, visceral slice of the insanely dangerous, day-to-day operations of a squad of American soldiers that are risking their lives as regularly as you and I take a three-day weekend. (And they know full well that a huge percentage of the civilians back home think they shouldn’t even be in Baghdad, or are completely indifferent to their mission.)

Bigelow veers close to glamorizing the bloodshed with her penchant for ear-splitting rock and roll and her admittedly impressive, slow-motion shots of explosions. But she also serves up horrific scenes of death and destruction that serve as a punch to the gut. Even if a soldier survives a war physically uninjured, he does not emerge intact.

We follow the day-to-day routines of an elite bomb squad that has 38 days left in their rotation. In the opening scene, where the squad uses a rolling ‘bot’ to sniff out a bomb on a busy street in Baghdad, we’re sure something won’t happen because of an element I don’t want to divulge here—-and yet it happens anyway. From that moment, Bigelow serves notice. We’re in for a hellacious ride.

Jeremy Renner isn’t 1/10th as famous as many of his peers, but he’s got much more of a star presence and better chops than just about any pretty boy actor you can think of. Renner commands the screen here in a performance worthy of a young Russell Crowe. His Sgt. James is a classic, conflicted, deeply flawed hero. Swaggering macho—-but not a caricature. Extremely good at what he does—-but the antithesis of the team player.

James has defused more than 800 bombs, and he keeps the switches in a box under his bed, noting that these cheap pieces of plastic and wire could have killed him in others in a heartbeat. At times his bravery crosses the line into death-wish territory—-but he’s not dead inside. He strikes up a friendship with an Iraqi boy, and he’s conflicted about the estranged wife and young son he’s left behind. (Evangeline Lilly from “Lost” has an effective cameo as the wife. We also get brief but memorable turns from Guy Pearce and Ralph Fiennes.)

The underrated Anthony Mackie is brilliant here as a hardened vet who has moments of intense doubt. Brian Geraghty has the Jeremy Davies thing down pat as a good-hearted but brittle soldier who has post-traumatic stress syndrome written all over his future. There isn’t a weak performance in this film.

Although it’s not quite in the same league as “Coming Home” and “The Deer Hunter,” this movie strikes similar themes about the huge chasm separating the maddening, adrenaline rush of the war experience and the beautiful banality of everyday home life. When a civilian sees a war veteran in a bar or on a bus in the States, and the vet is staring into space or acting strangely, we might think of him as cliche. Get over it, we think. When we see that veteran through Bigelow’s eyes, we’re amazed that anyone returning home from these experiences can achieve even moments of “normalcy.”

This is one of the best films of the year.

So it was another glamorous, occasionally inspirational, utterly predictable and at times downright goofy night at the Academy Awards. All the prohibitive favorites won in the acting categories, Kathryn Bigelow made history as the first female director win an Oscar—-and “The Hurt Locker” triumphed over “Avatar” in most of the technical categories and in the two-film race for Best Picture. “The Hurt Locker” was the big winner of the night, with six trophies in all.

Best speech: Sandra Bullock, who was funny and humble and sincere and just a little scattered, but that was OK.

Worst speech: Purple Dress Lady saying “Let the woman speak!” At least she didn’t say Beyonce should have won.

Nice touch: those tributes to the nominees, with Oprah Winfrey making Gabourey Sidibe cry in a real-life scene that seemed like something out of “Precious” and her own fantasies; Stanley Tucci doing a great monologue about Meryl Streep and her endless string of nominations; and Colin Farrell reminding everyone Jeremy Renner was in “S.W.A.T.”

As for the show itself: why do we make a big deal out of who the host(s) will be, when every year the host(s) virtually disappear after the opening moments? Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin rebounded from a surprisingly just-above-average opening monologue (following Neil Patrick Harris’ underwhelming musical number) with a couple of clever taped bits involving the Snuggie and “Paranormal Activity,” but after that they served as mere traffic cops.

One thing to look for tomorrow: will conservative commentators give “The Hurt Locker” team credit for repeatedly paying tribute to our men and women in the Armed Forces? It was a far cry from Michael Moore and his “fictitious war” rant from a few years back. Kudos to Kathryn Bigelow for her words of praise for the troops that put their lives on the line for us—-regardless of the politics that put them in danger.

Did we really get an Interpretive Dance tribute to “The Hurt Locker”? Good Lord, the people who put on these shows never learn. No matter how talented the performers, you cannot do an interpretive dance number for something like “The Hurt Locker” without inducing mass chortling. I wanted lyrics as well: “When the explosions come/it’s gonna be a shocker/if you don’t know the combination/to…The Hurt Locker!”

So they tried something new this year for the “In Memoriam” segment: James Taylor doing a lovely version of the Beatles’ “In My Life” as we saw montage of the recently departed, from Brittany Murphy to David Carradine to brilliant writers such as Horton Foote and Larry Gelbert and legendary directors such as Eric Rohmer.

Eric Rohmer

Brittany Murphy

Problem was, they once kept kept the mics open throughout the Kodak Theater, so we could hear the robust cheers for the better-known icons, and the woeful smattering of claps for behind-the-scenes talents and older character actors.

It’s just so unseemly. As I’ve said every year FOR A MILLION YEARS: Even in death, the star system is in place.

Winner for Best Costume starts out by saying, “I already have two of these.”

Fine, then give this one back!

Congratulations to Mo’Nique for the expected win—-but I’m wondering why she believes her victory is evidence the Academy can reward performance over politics. What the hell does that mean? Doesn’t the Academy usually reward the performance?

OK what was up with the Lady in the Purple Dress who hijacked the “Music by Prudence” speech moment? For a second I thought she was going to say, “Beyonce should have won!”

That was even more awkward than the quick-cut to the Coen Brothers after Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin made an “Inglourious Basterds” joke about Christoph Waltz’s character finding a roomful of Jews.

The transcript of Christoph Waltz’s acceptance speech is below.

It’s confirmed: this is the first time an Oscar winner has used the phrase “uber bingo.”

Oscar and Penélope that’s an über bingo. I always wanted to discover some new continent and I thought I had to go this way, and then I was introduced to Quentin Tarantino, who was putting together an expedition that was equipped by Harvey Weinstein and Lawrence Bender and David Linde, and he put this script in front of me and he said, “This is where we’re going, but we’re going the other way.”
So Brad Pitt helped me on board and Diane Kruger was there Melanie Laurent and Denis Menochet and Bob Richardson and Sally Menke and Adam Schweitzer and Lisa Kasteler. Everybody helped me find a place. Universal and The Weinstein Company and ICM and Quentin, with his unorthodox methods of navigation, this fearless explorer, took this ship across and brought it in with flying colors and that’s why I’m here.

And this is your welcoming embrace and there’s no way I can ever thank you enough, but I can start right now. Thank you.

As an awards show host, songster and actor, the gifted Neil Patrick Harris has enjoyed a remarkable run in recent years, and deservedly so. But his opening number tonight was just…OK. Marginally clever lyrics, a forgettable melody, and NPH seemed a little out of breath—-but I guess that means he was actually singing live, which is becoming a novelty these days.

As for the brilliant tandem of Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin…their opening monologue was neither outstanding nor historically deadly. There’s no way those two were going to bomb, but I think most of us were hoping for more than a medley of scripted one-liners, some much funnier than others. (Any joke that ends with “get a life” is not much of a joke.)

And now, as is almost always the case with the Oscars, the hosts virtually disappear for the remainder of the broadcast, acting mostly as traffic cops as they introduce the presenters who inevitably stumble a bit as they struggle with the PrompTer.

Kathy Ireland to Gabourey Sidibe: “The entire world is hanging on your every word.”

And: “You’re turning your genius into a dream come true.”

Oh my God, is there a worse half-hour in all of television than the official ABC red carpet pre-show? All those hyperkinetic hosts shouting questions at all those befuddled stars, who can barely get an answer out before host says, “Thanks so much for coming! Thank you! Thanks! Thank you!”

I know how difficult it is to work that red carpet. I did it a few times, and it’s sheer madness. You’re standing behind a plastic hedge, jockeying for position with the guy or gal next to you, the director is barking in your earpiece, you’re trying to come up with SOMETHING interesting to ask a nominee, and here comes someone else and you want to get that person as well….

And it all goes by in a blur.

But by the time the official ABC show kicks in, the hosts have those stars to themselves. You’d think they’d have prepared. Instead we get intros like, “He plays the most famous werewolf in movie history” for that kid from “Twilight.”

Really?

And how about Kathy Ireland, who looked fabulous but seemed on the verge of a total meltdown as she shouted her questions at stars half her size. When she was yelling/questioning Zac Efron and then Miley Cyrus, I half-expected her to say, “I’m a COOL MOM.”

Ugh. Let the real show begin. Bring on Alec and Steve!