The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker is directed by Kathryn Bigelow, who specialises in edgy, "man" movies - Point Break (loved it), Near Dark (I didn't like it as much as everyone else seemed to and I love a good vampire flick, maybe I'll revisit it), Strange Days (love Ralph Fiennes and and Angela Bassett in this), Blue Steel (memorable for Ron Silver's chilling performance), plus a few episodes of Homocide: Life on the Street and the New Order: Substance video.

I "felt" the movie and I think that is the right word because it was like being immersed in this small unit and their last few weeks just trying to survive their job. The jerky camera style which I hate was instrumental for this movie because you needed to lose yourself in it. The genius of this movie is that you don't get any messages about whether war is good or bad, right or wrong, you just get a sense of the futileness of their task, and how it does not matter how many IEDs they defuse, there are always more. The boyfriend and I had a long talk on the bus back home about the movie and a wider ranging discussion about "war".

So I would recommend it because it's not gory in that I'm going to show you people being blown up in slow motion so you can see all the blood and guts coming out at you because I can type movie. And I hate those type of movies. You might get seasick from the filming style though. It makes you think, and that is always a good thing to take away from a film.