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Location: West Los Angeles and Rancho Palos Verdes
13,583 posts, read 15,667,720 times
Reputation: 14049
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For the life of me I cannot understand why this film got any good reviews. Does this film have some sort of message to it, because I certainly did not get it. It seemed like just a boring composite of mediocre action scenes and borrowed concepts from other films, all of it very predictable. Do not see this film.
For the life of me I cannot understand why this film got any good reviews. Does this film have some sort of message to it, because I certainly did not get it. It seemed like just a boring composite of mediocre action scenes and borrowed concepts from other films, all of it very predictable. Do not see this film.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD!!!
Really? That's not what I got out of it at all. I walked away with the film still lingering in my mind for a few days, in fact. The story was minimal, but what's most important about a film like this is what's NOT said or shown - it's an examination of the psyche of a person doing one of the most dangerous jobs in the world for a country he's become completely detached from. Is he (Sgt. James) crazy? That's debatable. He definitely walks the line of "wild man" and "civilized" the whole time, but he dips back and forth to both sides of the line. We see him befriend a local Iraqi boy; we see him cry; we see him fall asleep with his helmet on; and we see him disarm a bomb without his bomb suit on. We even see one of his team members threaten to blow him up, and then we see him give that team member his juice when he really needed it. A compassionate, caring, wild man? It shows how someone like this CAN exist, but also asks the question: Can someone who lives that lifestyle for that long come back and really function back home (i.e. he can disarm a bomb with confidence and ease, yet he can't pick out a box of cereal without feeling overwhelmed)? Can he do anything else? Does he even want to? I thought it was pretty brilliant in that regard. Plus, it does the same (in less detail, sure) for the other two team members. It presents us with the 3 type of people you have in a war-time situation: the crazy guy who loves it, the guy who hates every second and is scared for his life, and the guy in between who seems to be envious of both in one way or another. Sure, the story isn't there, but try to see it as more of a chronicle of these guys' days as EODs instead of a war film like Saving Private Ryan which has a linear plot we can follow. It's not necessarily about what they do, but how it affects them. And you have to admit it did an excellent job of keeping tension during some of the disarming scenes. I especially loved the first bomb Sgt. James tried to disarm when the cab driver drove up to him and he had his gun to his head. What better way to introduce a character??
Or maybe I just really liked it because my neighbor in an EOD. Who knows?
I LOVED this movie. It was a great depiction of a small group of men stuck in a lousy situation, trying to do their job as best they could, getting thro the daily grind of dealing with being shot at, blown up, never knowing who they could trust - where every object could be a bomb and every person could be a bomber and yet they're still trying to save lives. The tension that they felt and expressed each time they had to diffuse a bomb whilst staying alert to someone setting it off prematurely was nail-biting!
This movie wasn't about action or violence - it was about three guys getting thro this alive. The protagonist, Sgt James, has a talent for this work and whilst he knows he could die any moment, he goes out there and just does his job. Anything else is immaterial and that's what makes this story so compelling. These aren't a bunch of guys talking about why they're there or if what they're doing is right. They're just doing what they're being paid to do and trying to do it as best they can.
Location: West Los Angeles and Rancho Palos Verdes
13,583 posts, read 15,667,720 times
Reputation: 14049
Quote:
Originally Posted by chilaili
I LOVED this movie. It was a great depiction of a small group of men stuck in a lousy situation, trying to do their job as best they could, getting thro the daily grind of dealing with being shot at, blown up, never knowing who they could trust - where every object could be a bomb and every person could be a bomber and yet they're still trying to save lives. The tension that they felt and expressed each time they had to diffuse a bomb whilst staying alert to someone setting it off prematurely was nail-biting!
This movie wasn't about action or violence - it was about three guys getting thro this alive. The protagonist, Sgt James, has a talent for this work and whilst he knows he could die any moment, he goes out there and just does his job. Anything else is immaterial and that's what makes this story so compelling. These aren't a bunch of guys talking about why they're there or if what they're doing is right. They're just doing what they're being paid to do and trying to do it as best they can.
With the exception of the part about bombs, you've described the film Black Hawk Down.
With the exception of the part about bombs, you've described the film Black Hawk Down.
Are you high?! The movies were completely different! BHD was 99% action-packed, explosions, DOZENS of guys running around a city within a 24 hour-period trying to get out, dying tragically, surviving, based on a true story. THL has very little action except for right at the beginning and about halfway thro when they're trapped in the desert, THREE guys over a period of THIRTY EIGHT DAYS, diffusing bombs, getting drunk, calling home, beating each other up while drunk and is written by a guy who spent time with a bomb tech crew in Baghdad.
I want to see it on a screen, not my TV so I might have to suck it up and drive to Denver. Looking forward to it as I have a couple of friends who are former EOD types.
Location: West Los Angeles and Rancho Palos Verdes
13,583 posts, read 15,667,720 times
Reputation: 14049
Quote:
Originally Posted by chilaili
Are you high?! The movies were completely different! BHD was 99% action-packed, explosions, DOZENS of guys running around a city within a 24 hour-period trying to get out, dying tragically, surviving, based on a true story. THL has very little action except for right at the beginning and about halfway thro when they're trapped in the desert, THREE guys over a period of THIRTY EIGHT DAYS, diffusing bombs, getting drunk, calling home, beating each other up while drunk and is written by a guy who spent time with a bomb tech crew in Baghdad.
Also, Black Hawk Down had Blackhawks, so yes indeed, they're totally different...what was I thinking...
i thought it was very good. probably not as rave-worthy as so many critics have made it out to be, but still well worth seeing, and by far the best iraq war movie yet made.
Saw it today with my younger son. We both thought it was quite good.
An aside: while at the box office the other day debating whether or not to buy tickets for G.I. Joe (I didn't), I had an encounter with a young man who is in the Army, stationed near me, who thought it was quite good as well - he described it a a very accurate depiction of his experience in Iraq.
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