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Once the unbearably exciting first ten minutes of Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" came to a close, I literally looked up at the auditorium ceiling and then at the speakers along the walls and smiled.  Sure, the sole explosion during "Locker's" opening scene was as loud as one of the numerous explosions in a mindless Hollywood blockbuster, but because the scene (and by the end, the entire movie) was so brilliantly Directed, I actually felt a bit shook up. And the urgency was unmistakable. I knew I was in.

Although "Locker" ran through the 2008 festival circuit, winning prizes and nominations from the Venice Film Festival and Independent Spirit Awards respectively, it has risen to be a serious Oscar contender for 2009.  Already Oscar talk is in line for Jeremy Renner for Best Actor, Bigelow for Best Director & more than anything, for the Best Picture award itself.

Playing it straight and without any of the glam from earlier studio pictures concerning terrorism in the Middle East (a catalog example of that bland trend would be Peter Berg's "The Kingdom"), Bigelow's picture is constructed on two visceral halves, thus creating a stasis of action and ideas.  After the thrilling opening, the first section of the film is essentially back-to-back-to-back set pieces/sequences that pit Staff Sergeant James (Renner), Sergeant Sanborn (Anthony Mackie from "Half Nelson") & Sergeant Thompson (Brian Geraghty) in increasingly hostile situations, usually involving the disarming of carefully hidden bombs--in public.  There is no "bad guy" in this war film, nor is there a political agenda to the piece.  It's a rich character study of three very different men--the rogue, the rational & the rookie--that wisely uses the war in Iraq simply as an environment.  For the most part, these are men who are just performing jobs (with the slight final exception of Renner's character who is practically addicted to the adrenaline of surviving day to day in Baghdad) and it's the level of no-bull routines that makes the film sort of frightening to watch.

The second section of the film still has expertly staged scenes of the team trying to locate and dismantle different bombs, but in between these horrific chapters we're given glimpses of each man's clouded internal path toward making some sort of personal amends with their reasons for being in the war in the first place.  We learn Sanborn does not want to grow up to start a family just yet.  We learn that Thompson may just be in over his head and now has to suck it up and cringe through the day to day grind.  With Sgt. James, we're given the real mixture of heroism and hubris.  Sure his job requires heroic actions, but he is a hot dog; an individual who relishes in rebellion and doing things against the books for the hell of it.  It isn't until we see his involvement with a young street vendor and then some closing scenes concerning his relationship with his immediate family that we begin to see shades of a really lonely soul who has finally found his comfort zone: staring death in the face. Everyday.

The film has strong and useful supporting turns from Oscar Nominee Ralph Fiennes, Guy Pearce, Christian Camargo & David Morse and it has a very real sense of location and geography (much in the tactical way Ridley Scott's "Black Hawk Down" did).  My only concern with the film is its actual release time: Summer 2009 (aka NOW).  In a summer where forgetful action fare like "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" and even worse "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" have a monopoly on Box Office receipts, "The Hurt Locker" will have to depend largely on critical reception and word of mouth to find its audience.  In a film industry that manages to convince audiences to lap up action films that have the word "Transformers" slapped on the the poster, it's inspiring to see Ms. Bigelow in full command of the craft--even using special effects and the handheld camera toward the benefit of actual storytelling.  Should she receive an Oscar nomination for Best Director (and believe me she deserves it) let it be a shaking of the finger toward the banal Michael Bay and his split second scenes/frames/pieces of shit, mindless movies.

It's okay to like action movies, believe me.  It's just even better to seek out those action movies that might get you thinking or feeling a little less light-headed.  Trust me, Shia LeBeouf & Megan Fox won't miss your presence.

Posted by nelsoncarvajal at 08:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What was originally perceived as a cover song of his previous "Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels," Writer/Director Guy Ritchie's "Snatch" opened to a mildly receptive audience. Pretty much, everyone felt that they had already heard this song already--just played before with different instruments: an ensemble of criminal and social misfits, all connected through an accidentally complex tapestry of fate, fuck-ups and possible divine intervention.  Almost ten years later, it's hard to run into a film lover who doesn't have this DVD laying on their coffee table as the stay-in-for-the-night-entertainment everyone can agree on.

The scene: Skipping ahead of its colorful opening segments, in which we're introduced to a character actor roster only the cinema gods can grant (including the untouchable Dennis Farina--watch out for his cross-section spew out on what "London" is), this particular scene has Stephen Graham (most recently Baby Face Nelson in Mann's "Public Enemies") in a shady cash purchase of a Caravan from a band of Gypsies.  Aided by the physical presence of the large Gorgeous George (an underground boxer he co-manages), Graham's Tommy character tries to comprehend the jibber-jabber-dialect of Mickey O'Neill (Brad Pitt, in an against-type supporting turn) who seems to be the alpha Gypsy of the clan (although here the term "Pikey" sometimes gets tossed around in place of Gypsy).  When Mickey and his buddies sell Tommy and Gorgeous George a defective Caravan, the pair of groups decide to settle the matter in a bare knuckle boxing match between Mickey and the gargantuan Gorgeous George (Adam Fogerty).  Of course, things go exactly wrong during the fight, as Mickey turns out to be a bare knuckle boxing champion and unbelievably knocks out Gorgeous George.  Plus, this impressive sequence ends with The Strangler's "Golden Brown" song rising on the film's soundtrack.

Why we love it: Watching the film on DVD now, gives us a sort of revived appreciation for Ritchie's unsung caper (and I'll admit it now, it's sort of a modest masterpiece in the lurid place of crime films) so there are really countless "great" scenes.  If we take the context of this scene into thought, we know that Gorgeous George is only days away from an important rigged fight for the notorious crime lord Brick Top (one of the great crime figures in film history, yes I said it) so the fact that he will essentially be bed ridden leaves Tommy (and his partner played by Jason Statham) in a really fucked situation.  The added dilemma of Tommy actually being killed by the angry Pikeys on the spot doesn't really help either.  If anything, the scene is a microcosm of the entire film in general: What always begins as a simple transaction slyly turns into a proposition and then ends fatal.  If anything, "Snatch" is Ritchie's term paper on the crime genre turned on its head.  In American crime films, theses murderistic figures are usually glorified to an almost untouchable status, leaving us longing to secretly live a life of crime.  With "Snatch" [and also "Lock, Stock" as well as the recent "RocknRolla"] Ritchie chooses to embody the cinematic criminal as an outsider who yearns to be accepted through an unpopular channel (the breaking the law one) and constantly has other independent agents of the same nature crashing into one other.  What we then see is a herd of lost souls all looking to piss on each other in order to, well, in a sense, get a better Caravan.

Watch how "Golden Brown" wraps up this scene here.

Posted by nelsoncarvajal at 01:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)