Hurt Locker = war propaganda film or fair & balanced?

[sapphi_snake]

rocketpig said:

sapphi_snake said:

rocketpig said:

It's been awhile since I watched the film but weren't the mercenaries pretty bad guys? It didn't make much sense for the main crew to be evil characters, as their main job was bomb disposal. That doesn't leave much room for John Rambo to pop out and start annihilating civilians.

And why exactly did there need to be an "evil" soldier? Some of their actions were evil but none of the characters stood out as champions or villains.

And, like I mentioned in the Blade Runner thread, when did this generation start preferring things to be laid out in black and white without any hint of subtlety? I commend Bigelow for not taking the cheap route out with this movie, which would have been far easier to do than what she did with the characters in the film. What some of you are advocating would have made for a shitty and predictable movie with uninspiring characters.

What hint of subtlety? And why only one side portrayed that way (using shades of gray)? And the movie was very predictable and the charatcers were cliche.

Probably the most fair argument made in this thread. Bigelow didn't delve into the reasoning behind the bombers at all. Maybe she didn't want to convolute the story. I don't know but showing the bombers as something other than hardened murderers would have been appreciated (even though I'm not really sure how she would have efficiently done that within the confines of the story).

I agree. Though maybe that means that her story wasn't ambitious enough. Or maybe she could've gone the route Clint Eastewood went when he made both Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima (showing both sides). I think it will be a long while 'till someone has the balls (no offence to Bigelow) to make an equivalent of Letters from Iwo Jima for Iraq.