Hurt Locker Pisses Off Real Soldiers

While I do want someone to topple that walking bloated ego James Cameron at the Oscars, I personally do not want "Hurt Locker" to be the giant slayer. (Which is kinda stupid, Mrs. Goliath beating Goliath instead of David...)

As it turns out, I'm not the only one. The problem with this "most accurate Iraq War movie to date" is that it is most manifestly inaccurate.

So says a bunch of guys who were there. And you know its pretty bad when its the anti-war Washington Post breaking the story.

Many in the military say "Hurt Locker" is plagued by unforgivable inaccuracies that make the most critically acclaimed Iraq war film to date more a Hollywood fantasy than the searingly realistic rendition that civilians take it for.

To which you might say: It's just a movie and an action flick at that. It's Tinseltown fiction -- an interpretation of war such as "Full Metal Jacket" or "Apocalypse Now." It's supposed to entertain. It's not a documentary, not real life.

But to those who were there, Iraq is real life. And they're very sensitive -- some would say overly so -- when their war is portrayed via a central character who is a reckless rogue.

Hence a rising backlash from people in uniform, such as this response on Rieckhoff's Facebook page from a self-identified Army Airborne Ranger:

"[I]f this movie was based on a war that never existed, I would have nothing to comment about. This movie is not based on a true story, but on a true war, a war in which I have seen my friends killed, a war in which I witnessed my ranger buddy get both his legs blown off. So for Hollywood to glorify this crap is a huge slap in the face to every soldier who's been on the front line."

The guy Rieckhoff is a partisan hack who works with Matt Damon, but if even a guy whose ideological sensibilities are the ones Hollywood loves to cater to thinks the movie is over the top, then something is wrong.

Of course, the jackass who wrote the film's screenplay retreats back to the tried-and-true defense of "it's only a movie". BTW, this is the same moron responsible for "Valley of Elah".

Boal not only wanted to tell a riveting and important story, but also to raise awareness about soldiers who disarm bombs, a specialty known as explosive ordnance disposal, which he believed the general public knew little about, even though hidden bombs are the leading cause of casualties in Iraq.

Yeah, only problem is that the "awareness" he raises is that of a fictional military where all soldiers are adrenaline junkies and cruelty is a way of life. You might as well be raising awareness for Romulans.

Then, in comes the usual academic milquetoast:

Filmmakers always worry that productions that servicemembers see as spot-on might leave general audiences cold. So: Is it really important that a war movie be accurate?

No, says David McKenna, a film professor at Columbia University. "Hurt Locker," he argues, isn't as much about Iraq as it is about one soldier's addiction to war. It's a character study, an exploration of courage, bravado and leadership told through "a series of suspenseful situations. I suppose it could have just as easily been set in outer space."

Here's the problem: it cannot be "so much about Iraq as it is about one soldier blah blah blah" because it is set in Iraq. Anything set in the actual Iraq War will always bring the war and its participants to the spotlight, because its a real war. And considering how most US soldiers are not the offensive caricature this purported "character study" portrays (addicted to war?), it will come accross as highly offensive to the ones who served there. Bigelow's "character study" would've been better served if it were placed in a fictional war or in "outer space".

The leader of the EOD memorial foundation also speaks up for the movie, but its kinda hard to take him seriously when his organization got a busload of money from the studio that made the movie. Its generally good practice from a courtesy standpoint to be nice to people who give you money.

The reason I loved Mel Gibson's "We Were Soldiers" was because the movie had characters, not caricatures. It had a story, not a political point. Is that too much to ask from the slew of Iraq War bullshit (up next, "Green Zone"!) streaming from the Hollywood cesspool? The sad part is that "Hurt Locker" is probably the high point, and the least offensive one Hollywood is willing to make. Uness Mel Gibson decides to do an Iraq War movie as well.

Update:

At the bottom of this LA Times piece is this bit which shows the company's contempt for real soldiers:

At one point, "The Hurt Locker" might have been made with government cooperation. But just 12 hours before Lt. Col. J. Todd Breasseale was to fly to Jordan to serve as the Army's technical advisor to "The Hurt Locker," he said in an interview that he heard there might be problems. A Jordanian official told him that scenes were being shot that were not in the script that the Army had approved. Breasseale accused the producer of shooting a scene in which soldiers act violently toward detainees. (The military does not provide help to films depicting violations of the laws of war, unless their consequences are shown.) He also charged that the production had driven a Humvee into a Palestinian refugee camp in order to film angry crowd scenes.

"Nice working with you," Breasseale said he recalled telling a producer before the military decided to stop working with the production. "Kathryn has a lot of talent, but I cannot trust that your company will honor its contract to the soldiers and government of the U.S." Breasseale said the filmmakers had been solicitous of the Army's opinion, "trying to get the look and feel right," and they had been allowed to film at an Army logistics base in Kuwait. Breasseale, who is now deployed, saw "The Hurt Locker" on a laptop in Afghanistan along with a soldier from one of the Army's EOD teams. He conceded it was a great story and a "spectacular looking movie. But if you're looking for realism and how military relationships really work, I believe she missed the mark," Breasseale said of Bigelow.

Driving a Humvee into a Palestinian camp just to spark up some trooper hate for the film. WTF...