As the 2009 winner of the Best Picture Oscar, the Hurt Locker was also special because its director, Kathryn Bigalow, because the first female director in history to win the Best Director Aaward. It was well deserved as The Hurt Locker is a well-made war movie set during the post-invasion of Iraq in 2004. The story follows William James, a Sergeant in A U.S. Army's Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) Unit and his ubsequent adventures with his team in this unit as they diffuse bombs set around the area of their base. The setup of the story is quite intriquing as I do not know much about the U.S. army's involvement in the War of Iraq so this gave me a clearer picture. Still, the film didn't quite work for me. There are some suspenseful moments in the film such as when James has to diffuse several bombs at once, but the story of the Hurt Locker, feels more like several events tied together. The movie is meant to be character and dialogue-based but I did not realize that when I first watched the movie as I did not know what to expect and was trying to focus more on the story. I also made the mistake of looing up the plot summary on Wikipedia before I watched the movie, so while there was some tense moments, I accidently already knew what was going to happen, and a level of suspense is important in a movie like this. The movie seemed to be moving too fast for me to focus on the characters and when I could, I didn't know what to make of them, The best thing to do in order to watch the Hurt Locker is to know nothing about it except that the audience should be watching the characters and the dialogue instead of paying attention to the story. Overall, the film is well directed by Bigelow as the film really portrays the darkness and muckiness of a war zone and the actors do an effective job, but the film didn't have as much weight for me as some other war films like Saving Private Ryan. Overall, I give the Hurt Locker 3 stars out of 5. ***
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