Breaking The Iraq War Movie Curse With 'The Hurt Locker' and Paul Greengrass' 'Green Zone'

Since its release, The Hurt Locker has proven to be "the year's most critically-acclaimed American film", with Roger Ebert, perhaps the biggest deal in movie criticism, calling the film the second best of the last decade. Inevitably, the picture is now gaining a lot of awards buzz, already sweeping the board at many recent award ceremonies.

The snowballing recognition for The Hurt Locker could make it this year's Slumdog, the small film that went big simply through word-of-mouth and critical appreciation. More importantly, this is likely to be the film that finally breaks the curse of the Iraq War movie.

Since the Iraq war began in 2003, a spate of films have been released based on the conflict. Jarhead, The Kingdom, Redacted, In The Valley of Elah, Body of Lies, Grace Is Gone, Stop-Loss and Harsh Times all focus on the effects of the war, but this isn't the only similarity they share - they also all either failed to recoup their budget at the box office or got just enough ticket sales to break even.

Furthermore, they all saw middling to downright negative reviews, never receiving anything more than a collective shrug from critics.

It's a long way away from the response to the plethora of Vietnam war films of the late '70s and early '80s, such as The Deerhunter and Platoon, many of which were tremendously successful both critically and commercially.

Now, after seven years of false starts, it seems that, with The Hurt Locker, the Iraq War movie curse could finally have been broken.

Personally, I couldn't think of a film more deserving of this - seemingly buried and forgotten like all the others after a poor box office performance early last year, the sheer quality and lasting effect of the film has seen it top many critics' end-of-year best lists. It has been the recipient of award nominations in abundance, including Golden Globe nominations (the best indicators of the Oscars) for Best Picture, Best Director for Kathryn Bigelow and Best Screenplay.

For me, it was one of the very best of 2009 (you can see the rest of the list here) - whereas previous Iraq flicks seemed bogged down in the political aspect of the conflict, The Hurt Locker focuses on what makes all classic war movies so good: the human side.

Like Apocalypse Now and The Thin Red Line before it, Bigelow's film explores the damaging effects of war on the common soldier both physically and mentally. As with all great war films, The Hurt Locker's themes are timeless, with Iraq serving only as a (admittedly harsh) backdrop. It's also a nerve-wreckingly tense action movie featuring some excellent naturalistic performances, in particular from leading man Renner, who is himself being tipped for a Best Actor nomination at this year's Academy Awards.

The Hurt Locker wasn't, it seems, a fluke, either. The upcoming The Messenger, about an injured Iraq War veteran named Will Montgomery who is assigned the post of Casualty Notification officer, has garnered rave reviews in America. I've been lucky enough to see the film before its British release, and it serves as a great companion piece to The Hurt Locker - whereas Bigelow's movie observes the effects of the conflict in the war zone, The Messenger takes a look at the difficulty of readjusting to normality when the soldiers return home.

The two central performances are outstanding - Woody Harrelson has never been better as Montgomery's recovering-alcoholic partner, while Ben Foster, as Montgomery himself, here affirms his position as one of the best actors of his generation.

It's a touching piece of work, quite different from, but every bit as good as Bigelow's film, and has itself has been gathering awards momentum (Harrelson has already received a Golden Globe nomination for best supporting actor).

Even before The Messenger is released in Britain, however, cinemas will be showing the film that should finally bring the Iraq War movie to the masses: Paul Greengrass' Green Zone.

Although The Hurt Locker and The Messenger have both proven critical favourites, there still hasn't been a commercially successful Iraq War movie. That's likely to change in spring 2010, though - although Green Zone has yet to be viewed by the public, an actioner that pairs up The Bourne Supremacy and Ultimatum director with Jason Bourne himself (and one of the biggest stars in the world), Matt Damon, has dollar signs written all over it.