Jul 30 2008
The Hurt Locker
Action movies tend to fall into “guy territory,” not just in terms of audiences but also in relation to the people who make them.
One major exception to the rule — one who doesn’t receive nearly as much work or acclaim as she should, in my opinion — is Kathryn Bigelow, former flame of Titanic helmer James Cameron, and the gifted director behind the vampire-Western cult fave Near Dark and the Keanu Reeves/Patrick Swayze bankrobbing surfer flick Point Break. To an extent, I think a lot of contemporary action movies have tried to ape Point Break, but with much lesser impact. After all, what was The Fast and the Furious except Point Break with cars? And over-the-top pics like Shoot ‘Em Up have had skydiving fights, but the Bigelow film totally set the bar for them and, for my money, still raises it far above its imitators. Few current actioners, with their CGI-enhanced stunts, shaky camerawork, and flurried edits, come anywhere close to the stellar staging, tight cutting and jaw-dropping cinematography in the Keanu Klassic. The steadicam-filmed foot chase between Reeves and Swayze should be canonized as a cinematic treasure, right up there with the car chase in The French Connection.
Bigelow will finally be back to theaters with The Hurt Locker, a thriller centered on the challenges faced by an elite Army bomb squad in Iraq. Granted, I don’t know if the world wants/needs/will pay to see yet another Iraq War film (so far, none have fared well at the box office), but I’m definitely chomping at the bit for this one, mostly because of my die-hard support for its director. The movie reteams Bigelow with her Strange Days star Ralph Fiennes, and also features Guy Pearce, David Morse and Jeremy Renner.
The Hurt Locker is going to be one of five U.S. films which will competing for the top prize at the 65th Annual Venice International Film Festival beginning on August 27. I, for one, can’t wait to see how it fares.
