"The Hurt Locker" = "Lethal Weapon" Goes to Iraq!

I saw "The Hurt Locker" the day before the Oscars, and assumed it would be my favorite Best Picture nominee. It certainly seemed like the award represented a battle between Overrated Big-Budget Special-Effects-Laden Family Drama ("Avatar") and Scrappy, Meaningful, Edgy Indie That Smart People Prefer ("The Hurt Locker"). When those type of struggles arise, I'm usually 100% on the side of the indie, because my identity is very much wrapped up in being the smart person. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that "The Hurt Locker" sucked.

There were some good points. It was well-directed. It had a lot of great individual scenes involving bomb defusing and such. There was good detail about what that's really like. The problem was that the script sucked.

There was no plot, and the characters were one-note. The main character was this white guy who came in on an established unit and Played By His Own Rules. Yes, He Did Things His Way, was very irrevent, made bad-ass offhand quips, endangered everyone needlessly with pointless bravado, and wouldn't you know it? He always turned out to be right in the end!

Then on the sidelines, you have the black dude. He was always saying things like "Sir, don't you want the protective suit?!" "Sir, we have to get going -- we don't have much time!" "Come back here or I'm going to have to report you to the principal!" (OK, he didn't say that one. But I wouldn't have been surprised if he had.) Basically, he was the cautious, rule-bound one, the one who was actually following well-established protocols that I'm betting are there for a very good reason -- and he was always wrong in the end. He quickly became nothing but a foil for White Guy's preternatural super-awesomeness.

It's basically just the "Lethal Weapon" formula transported to bomb-disposal units in Iraq. You have the wild-ass white guy who runs on instinct, rules be damned. And then you have the cautious black dude being dragged along, muttering "I'm getting too old for this shit!" White guy's always right, but we love the black dude anyway, because he's so adorable, the way he approaches things in a sane, rational way that doesn't threaten everyone's lives! Aww, look at him try! He'll never be as good as the white guy, but maybe he can learn a thing or two by basking in his glow!

Even the non-bomb-disposal scenes only existed to reinforce this dynamic. They get drunk in one scene, and of course it's the black guy who passes out and has to be dragged to his bed. In the end (which I'm going to ruin for you, because there's not much to ruin anyway), White Guy and Black Guy have a heart-to-heart, which basically just involves Black Guy tearfully asking White Guy, "How come you're so awesome?" White Guy doesn't really answer, but I was yelling at the TV "Because this is a simple-minded hero-worship-fest, with no real characters or plot!"

Then White Guy went back to his boring family stateside, and nothing much happened, beyond White Guy realizing that he has to go back to Iraq. So that's it then -- that's all he is, a perfectly perfect bomb disposal machine. Yes, I get that would be really hard to adjust to normal life after such a dangerous year. But he doesn't really go through any sort of struggle to come to his conclusion to return. The whole sequence only reinforces that he's not so much a character as a cliche.

The real best film of the year, by the way, was "Up in the Air." Or maybe "Up," which I didn't see, but probably got immediately disqualified in most people's minds because it doesn't fit the profile of a best picture (i.e., it's animated). I think most voters didn't even really consider either movie. I think they got caught by the Big-Budget Special Effects-Fest vs. Edgy Indie dichotomy, picked their sides, and that was that. It's a shame.