"The Hurt Locker"

“In peace, sons bury their fathers; in war, fathers bury their sons.” (Herodotus)

Were it not for my desire to view at least one of the top nominees for this year’s Best Film Oscar – and that the relatively low-grossing “The Hurt Locker” was already available on my cable provider’s Pay-for-View – I likely would have never seen this movie.

As a rule, I don’t watch movies about war. Four years’ service in the military during the Vietnam War convinced me that all war is a senseless waste of human life. Period. There is nothing glorious about fighting a war. Movies that suggest war is about patriotism or power, quite simply, miss that point. Yet, unlikely as it may seem, I was rooting for “The Hurt Locker” to win the Best Film Oscar during last night’s Academy Awards.

In the weeks leading up to the Academy Awards, “The Hurt Locker” received much negative criticism for its lack of reality, for taking liberty with the facts to embellish the drama. Some even politicized the movie, saying it was an insult to our troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These critics, however, missed the point of the film. It is not a documentary, nor was it intended to be one. Instead, the movie concerns itself with the psychology of fighting a war where the foe and the ally are indistinguishable from each other; where providence metes out life and death in seconds; where the rational is frequently a less-sound tactic for survival (mental and physical) than instinct. All of the facts in “The Hurt Locker” may not be accurate, but its message comes off quite clear: War is hell and should never be glorified. No one who has served in a combat zone will argue with that.

The Oscars for the movie, for its director (Kathryn Bigalow) and for its screenwriter (Mark Boal) are well-deserved. They got it right.