The Hurt Locker

Forgot to say earlier--thanks for all the hand held camera nausea advice. It sounds like a very involving movie...those are even harder to "distance" oneself from as you get sucked in.

My brother tells me that he hears a lot of dissing of this film from Iraq/Afghanistan vets--- Mainly just comments about implausible scenarios. They say it has become a descriptive term for a soldier who is showboating, being macho or going Hollywood ........."He's going all 'Hurt Locker' on us."

Anyone else heard this?

Yup, but it was inevitable. It's a Hollywood movie, after all. I don't think any movie can accurately portray real life events such as this one. But what I think The Hurt Locker succeeded in was portraying real emotions of soliders. The actors felt real in their portrayal of soldiers' inner feelings. And in the end, I think that was the thing that Kathryn and crew wanted to mainly focus on through this movie.

Hubby and I watched it last night. Great movie. I was surprised that a "war" movie won an Academy Award as it doesn't happen often (once every decade it seems).
During the scene where James is diffusing a bomb that turns out to be a cluster of bombs, our storm door was caught by the wind and SLAMMED shut with a bang and my husband and I jumped about 3 feet off the couch.
So I would say that this movie is VERY intense. As someone said upthread "you live it" and that was true or the storm door wouldn't have scared us as badly as it did.
My husband was in the Army (not in the middle east, but he did spend 60 days in Egypt in the desert on training exercises) and he did say that there were a few things that were implausible and somethings that do happen but that are stupid for soldiers to do, yet they do them anyway. The scene where the 3 of them start going down the alleyways was one area where my husband was saying: "stupid, stupid, stupid, you do NOT do that."
But he did say that for the most part he was very impressed as they captured the essence of soldiers and war and what goes through their minds, etc.
He also said (and he is a nit picker in movies) that alcohol is off limits even on the bases in Iraq (because it's a muslim country and they don't drink, although I'm sure there is a black market in the stuff) and that in every scene that showed their feet, their desert boots always looked brand new and that if they were only 38 days before rotation back, those boots would look worn. He said the desert can tear up some boots in a hurry.

He also said that a grandstander like James would have definetly come to the attention of his superiors and he would have been yanked off the team for endangering lives by his grandstanding and not following protocol.
But for the most part, he did like the movie.