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Shareby Stephen Hunter
Commentary (September 2009)
“The Hurt Locker, fashioned by Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow, recalls ancient Greek antecedents because its evocation of pure war is so gripping and it feels almost too real. You feel the weight of the sand in the air, the density of the sweat bead running down your nose, the slippery frictionless flank of a pair of needle-nose pliers standing between the self and obliteration. It’s war as sensual experience. But it’s actually another kind of throwback, a cinematic one—a retro genre piece in a long-forgotten tradition called the “unit tribute.””
