War and emotional baggage

Shorn off the Oscar halo, Bigelow’s ode to the bravehearts on the war front is as mundane and prosaic as a run of the mill movie can be. Of course, severe, yet circumspect, it is incisively indictive of the Big Brother’s war-mongering approach to put rogue nations in their place.

However, Bigelow ensures it does not ruffle the powers-that-be showering paeans on the tough men tasked to perform their death-defying duty screwing up their courage in the right place.

If one were to look more objectively and dispassionately at Bigelow’s biting tour de force where bombs are the order of the day and human bodies are fodder, there have been sterling and spectacular movies than ‘The Hurt Locker’.

Bigelow’s ‘Locker’ comes across more as lengthy and languid docu-drama than a fictional feature done with finesse. The scorching spectacle is nowhere near-Oscar perfect. That it was showered with the coveted distinction is more due to the brownie points it garnered in the run-up to the awards than its content.

‘Locker’ comes across as a dragging, disjointed and disappointing oeuvre. Though Bigelow succinctly shows how powers-that-be at the White House believe in invasions as wanton sport to achieve political upmanship. However it is the young citizens who are paying the price at Ground Zero. ‘Locker’ does not endear itself to the viewer.

For, Bigelow has gone about the business in mechanical and robotic fashion than crafting a charming cinematic work done with deftness of art.

‘The Hurt Locker’, for all the hosannas about it, comes across as an episodic and empty ensemble of military men defusing bombs, defying death and taking ego trips with machoistic bravado signifying nothing.