Pun Salad

After it spent about a month at the top of my queue, Netflix finally got around to sending me The Hurt Locker. Worth the wait!

The movie covers a few weeks in the life of an Army squad that arguably has the most dangerous job in the world: bomb disposal in Iraq. They've recently added a new guy, Sgt. James; this is because a previous guy, Sgt. Thompson got blown up in the opening scene.

Sgt. James joins Sgt. Sanborn, a by-the-book guy, and Spc Eldridge, a youngster who's having psychological difficulties with the constant threat of sudden death. To the consternation of his teammates, James turns out to be a loose cannon, an adrenaline junkie (a point that the movie makes with no subtlety whatsoever). But he's also extremely good at his job.

If you want edge-of-your-seat suspense, this is your movie. But my fellow right-wing troglodytes will want to know whether it's yet another entry in the string of Hollywood-leftist antiwar screeds. I'd say: yes, kinda. But your mileage may vary, and I thought it was still very much worth watching. For further discussion I recommend Andrew Klavan, Big John Nolte, and Mark Hemingway.

The main roles are played by relatively unknown actors. You'll notice some familiar faces who make brief appearances. For example, Evangeline Lilly was onscreen and off practically before I got a chance to say "Hey, that's Kate from Lost!"