James is a very confident, daring and wild detonator of bombs. After replacing a leader of a team of bomb detonators who died while on a mission in Iraq, he stirs the team with his indifferent attitude and confidence over death and danger.
I admire how he faces the bombs without his suit and protection, but if I am there, I would feel the same way his teammates felt about his actions. I will feel he is so careless, so arrogant, so uncaring about his life and his team’s life. What kind of a leader is that? You wouldn’t feel secured. But come to think of it, if you are on the very same situation you might just be shocked on how you will react or how you will transform your attitude. It is like either become a person eaten up by despair, fear and anguish, or a person who faces death like an everyday occurrence that you don’t feel threaten anymore.
The best scene for me is the scene wherein a human bomb was discovered inside a house, and James thought that the dead kid found as a human bomb was the Iraqi kid he strangely grew fond of. You will feel that James has not lost his value for life after all. He is still gets affected by these types of situation: THE ARROGANT CONFIDENT INDIFFERENT OVER DEATH bomb detonator still succumbs to questioning the reason of using an innocent kid as a bomb.
I am actually imagining sir Ricky Lee saying that this is the scene where the character is giving away his character. The shot of James taking a shower with his soldier clothes on, wherein you can also see water turning to red after washing his body is compelling. You can feel the feeling of dirt, of lowliness, and the need to wash away all of those feelings.
The best of all scenes is the adult Iraqi family man who pleads for them to detonate the bombs he have around his body. I can feel the hesitation at first of the team to help him or not because they can’t tell if the Iraqi man is telling the truth or not. I can feel James wanting to save the man. I can feel James pride and self-esteem lowering down after giving up and accepting that he cannot detonate the bomb in time. Most importantly, I again felt the pride and self-esteem of James lowered to the MOST as the bomb explodes and the man dies together with it.
Another reaction is the last part. Actually I wasn’t able to watch the last part, the DVD is jumping. But since this is a movie that Sir Ricky keeps on giving out as an example, I know how that scene goes. He is talking to his baby, saying things about loving things when you are young; but as you grow up, you suddenly realize what you really love to the point that there might be just only one thing left. In James case, he love the feel of detonating bombs more than being a family man, as he goes back to the war again. I love how the clouds on the windows pass by as he talks to his kid. Sir Ricky pointed this out as well.
To sum it up, it is a great movie. But it is full of talkies. For audience like me who doesn’t know a lot about the war, the soldier life and the terminologies of bombs, it would be hard to catch up at first and it could be boring at the first part.
I give it a 2/5. Again, this is just my own ratings. Good movies for me are dramatic movies that will really shake me. The thing is I can fall asleep on this movie, but other people might rate it a 4 or a 5 even, it’s not just for me.
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