The Hurt Locker

After much anticipation and finally being able to see The Hurt Locker, I can honestly tell you it was sorry excuse for a film and is showing the clear way how Hollywood chops up a story completely wrong. Let me explain how. I am a Army veteran of four years. Spent a year in Iraq. Funny enough I did work that goes hand in hand with what the people did in this movie. The characters in this movie were in a group called E.O.D. explosive ordinance disposal. They are the soldiers that blow the bombs up, or diffuse them if possible. I provided security for them for the first 6 months of my tour with them. For the last 6 months I worked on route clearance and I operated a vehicle called the buffalo in search of I.E.D.'s (improvised explosive devise). So I am very familiar with bombs. We worked out of a firehouse like building where we had shifts of 24 hours on and 24 hours off. So I lived with, worked with, and ate with the the E.O.D. guys. I saw they're protocols, how they use the robots, the use of the bomb suit, planting c4, detonating c4... you name it, I saw it. Spoilers ahead I would say around 80-90% of this film was painful to watch, because it was so unbelievable. In the movie the characters casually would wear the bomb suit and go for a joy ride to go dismantle some bombs... total b.s. In reality E.O.D. only does that if it is they're last option. Anything that is a possible I.E.D. they simply sent they're robots with video cameras on them, brought it back if an I.E.D. was found and then send it back with c4. The Army does not risk the lives as portrayed in the movie. Another thing that was hilarious to me. The guys drove around in Iraq in just the Humvee. It's funny because we drive in things called convoys which is multiple vehicles. At minimum 5! This goes back to what I said about the Army does not value our lives at nothing. We did not drive around like we were Clint Eastwood and we were some unstoppable bad asses. Wouldn't it be much easier to ambush and kill soldiers if we all drove around with just one vehicle? Even if we wanted to we couldn't. Which brings me to another scene. The part when Jeremy Renner's character hides in the Iraqi's truck and leaves the base. First off we have check points on all entrances/exits. WE DO CHECK THE VEHICLES. We are not going to just let a vehicle on or off base without checking it to miss a human adult body. When your found too? Your ass is not getting a slap on the wrist either and certainly not nothing like in the movie. Also, how they operated in general was a total joke as well. After the first scene with Jeremy Renner's character goes around throwing gas everywhere and walking around with the god-like complex, his ass would have been stripped of his rank just as soon as he got back and would find himself doing lots of extra duty filling sand bags. If you were to take a shot for every time they were out of uniform you would be fucked up by the end of the movie The Army was ape shit about uniformity so it's near impossible to walk around a base in America without getting reamed, in Iraq it's far worst cause it's your ass. So when they go walking around off base with they're helmet's off, sleeves rolled up... uhhh sure.With how many soldiers we work around it's too hard to do stupid shit like that without a ramification. Last the character again of Jeremy Renner, at the end when he has his little box of goodies he shows off. There is no way in hell he is going to collect all of that shit. You don't just get to take part's of I.E.D's to your room for a trophy hah! Some of you might be thinking it's just a movie, well the problem I have is they were apparently trying to make a movie that was true of how things are over there. Kind of a gritty or raw way of life how it is? Let me be the one to tell them and you they failed miserably. I constantly thought throughout the movie... "did they even speak with anyone from E.O.D.?" While I am naming just some of the qualms I had with the movie, I really had many more. Overall I give the movie a 1 out of a 10. I will give it a 1 because they tried to shed some light on the jobs I worked around while there in Iraq. I wouldn't even recommend for a rental for this one.