Word: iraq
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These worthy films were based on fact and told a microscopic truth, but they left untold the larger ache of an Iraq tour: how men in peril survive. Finally comes The Hurt Locker, a scary, thrilling patrol of those Baghdad streets by men who defuse IEDs. Written by journalist Mark Boal (whose reporting was the basis for Elah) and directed by action-movie maven Kathryn Bigelow, this film looks, feels and smells real; you'll need to rinse off the grit after seeing...
...joining some Brit mercenaries (led by Ralph Fiennes) in the desert, James is a marvel to see in action. He has the cool aplomb, analytical acumen and attention to detail of a great athlete or a master serial killer--anyway, some gifted obsessive. A quote from Iraq expert Chris Hedges that opens the film reads, "War is a drug." Movies often editorialize on this theme: the man who's a misfit back home but an efficient, imaginative killing machine on the battlefield. Bigelow and Boal aren't after that. They're saying that, in such an infernal peacekeeping operation...
...Hurt Locker has a few longueurs, and once or twice it spells out in dialogue what the images have eloquently shown. But short of being there, you'll never get closer to the on-the-ground immediacy of the Iraq occupation, its sick tension, its toxic tang. This is one of the great war films, and our own Medal of Honor winner...
...want to be able to walk around at midnight and feel safe. Then the Americans should leave.' SHAKER ALWAN, who recently fled his home in Baqubah, Iraq, after four mutilated bodies were dumped nearby, saying the U.S. should consider postponing its planned June 30 troop withdrawal from Iraqi cities...
...Prime Minister has been executing a U-turn in slow motion.' WILLIAM HAGUE, British shadow Foreign Secretary, after Prime Minister Gordon Brown reversed his earlier decision to conduct a closed-door inquiry into Britain's entry into the Iraq war; Brown has since agreed to open some sessions to the public...