The Hurt Locker

Already celebrated for its breathtaking realism in depicting soldiers and explosions, The Hurt Locker is being called "the best Iraq war movie," with the qualification that the genre has been weak and the public response weaker. This is Kathryn Bigelow all right: macho men in dazzling exploits, exhilarating and always a little terrifying to watch, with adrenalin and testosterone spurting off the screen. If war is a drug, this movie could give you a contact high. Bigelow was obviously born to make a war movie. The only question is why she took this long to do so. Writer Mark Boal led her into it. He embedded with a bomb squad in Iraq, and came back with remarkable stories and a character to hold them together. He's Staff Sergeant William James, who's what in the genteel days of The English Patient was more commonly called a "sapper," a combat engineer who specializes in demolitions, minefields, and the like. Bigelow wisely chose Jeremy Renner, an unknown and unglamorous actor, for this pleasingly enigmatic role of a man who may be closer to bombs and timers than to his own comrades.

The Hurt Locker (soldier slang for a real bad place) gives you immediacy and vérité soldier life, with the shaky digital camera and in-and-out zooms of the genre (the action is so good, we soon forget them, while in Brian De Palms's crude 2007 Redacted, they grate all through). Such authenticity is achieved in Brit documentary filmmaker Nick Broomfield's more political, excellent, little seen, low-budget 2005 drama The Battle for Haditha. It may not make his film unbiased, but Broomfield most notably gives more detail of the Iraqi P.O.V. -- using real Iraqis -- while Bigelow sticks to showing Iraqis as the American soldiers experience them -- an experience that turns out to be insane, paranoia-inducing, and scary. (In both movies one of the few friendly forms of contact is buying and selling pirated DVD's, the US soldiers buying, the Iraqis selling, and in both this contact becomes a key plot element.) Obviously Bigelow also had a much bigger budget, the better to provide a wealth of spectacular explosions, essential (or justified anyway) since this is about a small team of three men whose main (but by no means only) job is to find and defuse improvised explosive devices (IED's), the DIY but sometimes highly ingenious signature weapons of the Iraqi insurgency. There is also a horrifying body bomb; a complicated and lethal car bomb in front of a UN building; a suicide bomber who has a change of heart (as in Hany Abu-Assad's 2005 Paradise Now); and a hairy firefight with snipers (and a somewhat obtrusive cameo by Ralph Fiennes) out in the desert. Besides which the adrenalin-numbed Sergeant James independently gets himself and his two squad members, Sergeant JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), into various private and probably unnecessary severe crap storms. All of this is staged with stunning accomplishment and a strong focus on character and the interactions, intense even when alienated, of these three men.

The movie takes no political stand, other than Hedges' "war is a drug." This is like the point of view of Andrew Swoford used for Sam Mendes' 2005 Jarhead, which, however unsuccessful in some aspects and poorly received, conveys that soldiers don't question war because they're too busy doing dangerous jobs, or waiting and hoping to do them, and trying to stay alive till, God willing, their tour ends.

The Hurt Locker is episodic and cyclical. It ends where it begins, with the protagonist joining a new team of strangers for another tour. Thanks to Boal's writing, Bigelow's fine directing, and an excellent cast, the episodes never seem routine or repetitive. But if you emerge with a sense of numbing danger and pointlessness that may not be inappropriate. The only structure is the routine one of datelines saying how many days are left in Bravo company's tour. But this is a figure that, as Kimberly Peirce's Stop-Loss depicts, is often set back to start again.

The opening sequence, where James's predecessor is killed, leaving Eldridge and Sanborn in need of a new leader, is pretty obvious. It's so carefully set up you know what will happen. It's still excruciatingly tense, a textbook street IED diffusion job that conveys how terrified the two backup guys are and sets up what's to come. This is a team, with all three in radio contact and each with his function, Eldridge the lookout in charge of Sanborn, who's the guard. The street is surrounded with buildings and people and deep in unknowns. When James arrives shortly after his predecessor's body has been shipped home, he does a similar job, but it's all different.

First we don't feel the danger except by remembering the first sequence, because James is so immune to it. Sanborn and Eldridge are freaking out because James doesn't stay in touch with him when he's suited up dealing with the device. They feel lost. We realize that the three before were a great team and we sense the rage and abandonment of his bereaved mates. There's immediate intense conflict between Eldridge, an elegant, chiseled black man with extensive Intelligence experience, and the puffy-cheeked James whom Eldridge calls "redneck trailer trash" straight off to his face. These telegraphed macho conflicts, essential Bigelow, work because the jobs being done are all so convincingly and intensely depicted.

This is a great movie but it leaves you empty. The director is so caught up in what she's doing that it's infectious, but the compelling intensity also represents a loss of perspective. Still, if there is any non-documentary Iraq war movie that's a must-see, this has got to be it, and it's by far the best thing the uneven but gifted Kathryn Bigelow has ever done. It's a game-changer, the new American war movie to beat.

(This is a cut version of a 1,600-word review.)

This is a different kind of war movie for a different kind of war that ultimately fails in the same ways the war fails - in that it lacks a singular focus, it has no direction or goal, and the purpose is not clear. It's not a bad movie, I just couldn't find anything to connect to or engage with - and when a moment would arise in which I thought that thing to connect to was coming... it didn't.

The film drags along at a snail's pace at times, which works for some scenes, such as a great scene wherein the main characters are pinned down for several hours by insurgents in the middle of the desert - but mostly the slowness just feels slow. There is no real story here, yet it isn't just a docudrama, either. It doesn't seem to know what kind of a movie it is, or from which characters' view point it is being told. In my opinion the story that it started to tell (and would have made it a much more interesting film) was of the drug-like addictive nature of high risk behavior, and how people who engage in that sort of thing in war will return to civilian life only to find other dangerous, high risk behavior to engage in... which is not dissimilar thematically to another of director Kathryn Bigelow's films, "Point Break". Alas, it seemed as if she forgot about that angle halfway thru the film. The worst part of the film is the ending, which after 125 minutes of slow pacing suddenly races past what should have and could have given the film its purpose.

If I had seen this film back when it first came out, I think I would have said, "OK. A well-acted, decent film despite its problems." The thought that this film would be nominated for and would win so many major awards, including being the front runner for any Oscar whatsoever -- would not have even crossed my mind, and it is mindboggling to me now that that is the case.

I liked this movie very much because, apart from being a good thriller, I believe it is a quite good psychological comment of how people function under extreme circumstances such as war.

Basically the movie introduces few different types of character and then inspects them. Firstly SSgt. James who as he says "loves only one thing..". He is a person who loves war because it gets his adrenalin pumping. Anybody who ever loved doing anything can easily understand what keeps him going, except in his case it is something, hm..., not so nice and widely excepted. This results in creating extremely dangerous situations for all the people (soldiers) that surround him. He is aware of that, and is torn by that fact but he really cannot help himself, he has no choice because he is the way he is. He seeks danger on one end, and when he finds it, he appears to be the best person to be around. A nice touch in the movie was the way in which he tries to rationally "validate" his actions by taking a righteous stand regarding the death of an innocent (not to go into the details)...

Other soldiers are a wide specter of human beings with feelings of regret, fear, compassion etc.. The people who are very much affected by the war and are changed by it. Two supporting roles of Sgt. Sanborn and Spc. Eldridge are well placed in contrast to SSgt. James for being "human". Acting is great, and all the important characters convey their state of mind very well. David Morse was in the movie for just a few seconds and played his role of a "hillbilly cowboy" marvelously as Col. Reed.

A really good movie...

I couldn't help compare this film with Ridley Scott's "Blackhawk down". Both films are military action flicks. But when Scott's film shows the seemingly psychologically indifferent amount of cruelty of war (it just happens as inevitable part of it), when all involved and their loved ones are simply victims, this one tries to build up an overview of human psychology. This policy of treating us a target of social manipulation has always made me upset.

It has failed as far as I have been concerned because it is overly politically correct (which I do not condone because of its clearly manipulative goals). They want to pass a clear message, not a view to think over. I could call this a propaganda. In fact I do.

Do not get me wrong. I do not think this film was bad by any means. However, I absolutely do not think it was great whatsoever. I do not think it merited the praise it received. I could not get into this movie. I did not find any character particularly riveting. Instead, I believe everything was oversimplified. There are three significant characters who can all be fully described in one word. William James(Jeremy Renner) is reckless, JT Sanborn(Anthony Mackie) is rational and Owen Eldridge(Brian Geraghty) is a whiner. Talk about simple and boring. It is a complete misconception to call the "protagonist" William James anything more than an action junkie placed in a dramatic film. He does not fit. Sure he disarms bombs and saves lives but you get the idea throughout the film he just does it for the thrill. His experiences are nothing more than him indulging in his cravings for adventure, which makes it very difficult to connect with him in dramatic scenes. The overall point of this story was to connect with this character and how he is consumed by "war". I feel like I did not have this connection and the actual story was not strong enough to support where the characters were lacking. I could see how war veterans could connect because they probably have had similar experiences to relate making this film an involved reminiscence. I do not see how your average moviegoer could call The Hurt Locker a "great" film/experience when it lacked great dialogue, a great story, complex and diverse characters, great acting. The Hurt Locker is an average film. There is nothing about it that makes it stand out above and beyond any other war film I have ever seen and it certainly did not deserve the Academy Award for Best Picture.