The Hurt Locker...

On sale and after it did so well at the Oscars, I figured it was about time I caught up with the belle of this year's movie ball. I've not got an awful lot to say, but I dig it. There are parts of the second half where you begin to think "well that's just REALLY reckless" and you start to distance yourself, but this brief portion of the film lies sandwiched between tense and thrilling bomb defusal sequences. The drama and intensity of the situation these guys goes through is writ large thanks to Bigelow's assured direction and Boal's ballsy script.

In the hands of a male director, The Hurt Locker could have easily become a misguided melting pot of masculinity. Not to play-up the 'Bigelow being a woman' factor unnecessarily, but it's abundantly clear that Bigelow really understands the male psyche - far better than any man, I'd wager. Sometimes the best outlook on a situation can come from the outside, and so it is the case with The Hurt Locker's macho world of bomb disposal. It's a tough job that takes its toll and feeds on bravado, ego and measured risk ... the 'sanity in an insane world' thing.

As usual it'd be best to try and avoid or ignore the Oscars hooplah surrounding it to let the movie talk to you on its own terms (which was how I approached the devestatingly good Brokeback Mountain), because it's a flick really worthwhile seeing (and indeed the high point of the 'Iraq-tion' sub-genre ... I mean that as a compliment mind you, because yeah, movies about the current Iraq war go down like a lead balloon, but The Hurt Locker isn't about the war - that's incidental, it could be any warzone - this film is about the male leads and only about them. It's an incisive glimpse into the male mind in extreme circumstances, and that's what Bigelow does best.

Green Zone...

Perhaps it's telling that it's taken me almost two weeks to get around to saying something about Green Zone, but I really couldn't think of much to say. It's what I like to call, an "Iraq-tion" movie (combining Iraq and Action) ... although if you don't pronounce that perfectly you'll just sound like a bit of a pervert.

Anyway, it's not as thrilling and intriguing as the Bourne franchise, but the action sequences (especially a perfectly panicked, even chilling opening) are pretty good - well, you'd hope so considering it's Paul Greengrass at the helm.

Plot wise it all gets a bit confusing after a while when it gets into the nitty gritty of WMD ... or the lack thereof and what's really going on. Quite quickly you give up trying to figure out that stuff, unsure of how much is true and how much is fiction, and just wait for another well made action sequence to roll around.

Probably the best of the "Iraq-tion" genre, if you will, but nothing all that amazing either.

Charlie Wilson's War...

While the content is before my political time, and certainly even (for half of the plot at least) just flat-out before my time full stop, the subject still makes an impact. It's certainly understandable why this film was made, what with the current situation in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

What I found most affecting about the film, was that it showed us how much money and effort was put into fighting the 'Commie Bastard' Russians in Afghanistan ($1 billion) and how 'they' just ditched the battered and bruised people (over half of which were under the age of 14) by not ponying up a comparatively measly sum of cash for education and the like.

It speaks volumes about the current situation, a catch 22 even. Either leave the troops in both territories and lose further lives (on both sides), or pull out too soon yet again after turning two country's population's lives upside down before the bad guys ultimately regain control, therefore making the entire war completely pointless, thus making the lives lost on both sides mean absolutely nothing - nobody would have died for anything. You get the feeling that the US government doesn't have a great deal of patience for anything outside of easy-to-understand 'shoot and kill' that lasts for anything longer than a year ... both from this film, and from the current political climate.

News flash, wars take a long time, they're devastating and horrible things which happen because they seek to put a stop to something else that is devastating and horrible from happening. It's the ultimate catch 22, but it cannot be achieved in six months, and the fighting certainly doesn't stop after the last bullets have been fired.

History is tragically repeating itself, and this is one of the issues that the darkly comic Charlie Wilson's War flags up for our attention.

While I didn't understand certain things regarding the American political system (hell, it's hard enough to understand the absolute garbage being thrown around by the current government here in the UK), just as a subtle black comedy it works, and reminds us that there's not enough Tom Hanks on the big screen these days.

A bit more thought is required for this one, and at times it can become quite dark when signaling up the horrid reality of the Afghan plight, but it can equally be enjoyed as a political farce in some respects, and indeed the two central performances (Hanks & Hoffman) are a joy to watch.

Ultimately it is a refreshing watch, it never decidedly strays into either side of the political spectrum, instead deciding to leave the politics and ethics balanced and open to the viewer's own interpretation. Indeed, the closing statement denoting "...we just fucked up the end game" speaks volumes in itself.