The Hurt Locker

"Basically, if you're in Iraq, you're dead", one soldier concludes after rambling off statistics about the ever-mounting American casualties in the Iraqi war. This dialogue opens Kathryn Bigelow's nerve-racking 'The Hurt Locker', and sets the tone for the countdown of an elite bomb squad's tour in Baghdad, 2004. Each sequence is introduced by the number of days left in the tour; which parallels the over-arching sense that life in wartime is as fast-paced as it is synonymous with death. There are no real safeties, no real certainties. Time is a clock that ticks louder and faster than any other. Dealing with this is very much like diffusing a bomb: in that no matter how careful and precise you are, there are just too many ways that it can go off.

The film's opening credits include a quote from author Chris Hedges, who describes war as a lethally addictive drug; one that produces the kind of adrenaline that can numb the ever-present thought of one being killed at any given second. This is how our protagonist, Staff Sergeant James, lives his life during his tour; and this is just how Bigelow directs 'The Hurt Locker'. She shoots the film in a grainy, digital video and the kind of shaky camerawork that is becoming more modern each year. These attempts to make movies more "real" usually defeat the purpose of what make movies so special. They are not reality, they are not real. They are a glimpse into another world (no matter how much like our own) via the artists' sensibilities. These realism filters often times just make watching films a struggle. That all being said/bitched, it serves 'The Hurt Locker' well. Any still image or slow motion shot feels like a breath of fresh air. The majority of the shots are so tight we feel vulnerable to all the things that could be going on offscreen - very much like the soldiers are to all the parked cars and windows above them. The bomb diffusion scenes are all wire piles and sweat running down the face. An elite bomb squad may seem a strange choice for our three leads, but it feels emblematic of this new kind of brutal war in Iraq. Another tense scene out in the desert has the squad pinned down with a group of contractors in a sniper-style shoot out against a small band of insurgents miles away. There's nothing between them, and they're looking right at each other while trading single shots back and forth. It seems absurd, but again encapsulates this strange new war.

Maybe the greatest compliment one could pay the film's three leads is to comment over how much they look like the real thing: jar headed, simple, and tough. They all represent the spectrum of how soldiers might react to war. Sergeant James is borderline-suicidal, Specialist Eldridge is a one harrowing moment away from mental collapse, and Sergeant Sanborn is the level-headed Marine trying to keep it all in perspective. Anthony Mackie's Sanborn is probably the easiest to relate to, but still offers the one sentiment of utter hopelessness in the film. Looking like a boxer who just lost the fight of his life, he's limp in the passenger seat of the Humvee, confessing the utter loneliness of life so close to death. It's a heartbreaking scene with no vanity in sight. But the magnetic Jeremy Renner can't help but steal the show. His Sergeant James is the wild man, the rebel whose instinct is to do exactly what he shouldn't (very much like Johnny Utah with a more obvious death wish). "If I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die comfortable", he says as he removes his body armor to diffuse a car bomb. Renner plays him with an intense combination of stubborn rebel, caring soldier, and suicidal adrenaline junky. It's an enigmatic performance that feels like Steve McQueen via Russell Crowe. But for all the humanity, this is as much a film about men as it is their instruments of war.

Look out for great cameos by Guy Pearce and David Morse.

Tetro

It's pretty hard to talk about this week's 'Tetro' without talking about Francis Ford Coppola, as it's his first original screenplay since 1973's 'The Conversation' and probably his most interesting film in maybe twenty years. You may argue this, but you cannot deny the comparisons between it and his sorely overlooked follow up to 'The Outsiders', 'Rumble Fish'. Again, Coppola takes us into the relationship between eager teenager and distant, complex older brother. He also again blesses us with a stark and gorgeous black and white world of dramatic, dream-like images. 'Tetro' starts out as a sort of kitchen sink drama about two men tearing each other up over their complicated family. But by the film's third act, Coppola cranks up the atmosphere to operatic levels with big images and set pieces. It feels a little unbalanced, and many will disagree with the film's overall tone. But love it or hate it, 'Tetro' is a remarkable film.

Like Mickey Rourke's "Motorcycle Boy", Vincent Gallo's Tetro is the essence of hipster cool and existential angst. He smokes, he's prone to periods of brooding, and has a history of psychological issues. He's a complicated man, but no one understands him but his woman (who met him as his nurse in a mental institution). His promise as one of the great writers has become the stuff of legend, but he's never delivered what could have been his opus. "He's like a genius", his wife tells his younger brother, "but without a lot of accomplishments". It's a line that's again remarkably similar to Dennis Hopper's drunken speech about the essence of "The Motorcycle Boy": "Your brother was born in the wrong era, on the wrong side of the river, with the ability to do anything that he wants to do; and finally, nothing that he wants to do". It's a role that covers the spectrum, and Vincent Gallo pretty much illuminates all of it. He broods with those big, hollow eyes; he loves his Argentinian wife; and he's prone to fits of firey, Italian rage (which always seem to come off as pretty funny at times). Gallo has had no problem casting himself as the sexy, tortured genius whether in real life or in his own films; but it's nevertheless hard to deny his work here.

Just 3 days shy of his eighteenth birthday, young Benny is a waiter on a cruise ship. Engine repairs give him the opportunity to find his long lost older brother, Angelo, who now spends his days drinking coffee and lighting small plays in Buenos Aires. Angelo is long divorced from his family, and so loathes their famous composer father that he now goes only by the first half of the family name, Tetrocini. "You know what love is in a family like ours", he asks Benny, "it's a quick stab in the heart". Tetro wants little to do with Benny, but his charm and an act of fate keep him grounded with Tetro and his wife. An aspiring writer himself, Benny becomes obsessed with the great work Tetro never published and the answers it might give him as to what has become of their family. "It's not fair", Benny protests. "I don't know anything. All I have is you, and you're fucking crazy". Benny is played by Alden Ehrenreich, who makes a pretty impressive feature debut. He recalls Michael Pitt without all the sensitive preening, and does teenaged naivete just as well as he does wise-beyond-his-years confidence.

'Tetro's third act is exponentially heavier, as Benny turns Tetro's heavily coded work into a masterpiece of a successful play. Tetro is then faced with having his only closely guarded work turned over to the world. "If you have one word, who would you give it to", he asks his wife. What we see of the play begins to parallel the slow unraveling of the Tetrocini family's past, as do flashbacks which too are in color so exaggerated they look like they were filmed in Technicolor. Everything all comes to a head in a big way, with Coppola staging a very glamorous awards ceremony and a finale that looks like Rusty James and The Motorcycle Boy crashing a Corleone funeral.

Echoes of Coppola's past films aren't the only thing haunting 'Tetro'. The composer father, the horrible accident which took a loved one, the fear over releasing what may be one's last great work - it feels like one of the most personal films he ever put out. It may not be one of his best, but it is a wonderful reminder of why he is still making them.