Christianity Today lists their ten most redeeming films of 2009. They describe a "redeeming film" as:
... movies that include stories of redemption-sometimes blatantly, sometimes less so. Several of our films have characters who are redeemers themselves; all of them have characters who experience redemption to some degree-some quite clearly, some more subtly. Some are "feel-good" movies that leave a smile on your face; some are a bit more uncomfortable to watch. But the redemptive element is there in all of these films.
One of the films they list is the The Hurt Locker, a movie that certainly deserved its nomination for Best Picture. I won't bother to summarize the story since most are probably familiar with it, but it gives an excellent insight into what war in places like Iraq and Afghanistan has been like for the young men who are sent there to fight.
Perhaps the most significant point the film makes is how difficult it is for our troops to do combat under our rules of engagement. Early on a soldier sees a man holding a cell phone as his teammate is disarming an IED. Is the man an insurgent about to use the phone to trigger the explosive and kill his friend? Should he shoot? What if he's just an innocent civilian? What if he doesn't shoot and the man detonates the bomb? He has three seconds to decide what to do.
The Hurt Locker subtly poses those quandaries over and over - who are the bad guys? How can you tell? I don't see how any young man placed in those kinds of situations can be charged in a military court for making the wrong decision. Indeed, it boggles the mind that three Navy SEALs are currently on trial for simply punching a terrorist in their custody who had murdered several Americans and desecrated their bodies. Worse than getting punched happens in the midst of almost any football game on any given Autumn weekend in America. We need to hold our military to a high standard of conduct, of course, but we don't have to be fetishistic about it. Surely there are disciplines short of court martial for such breaches.
In any event, The Hurt Locker is apolitical and as realistic as a war movie gets. The realism, however, means that the language and violence are pretty raw, so I encourage anyone who has reservations about viewing such films to take a pass on this one.
RLC
