The Hurt Locker: Exploding with Power and Passion
I’m from America. I’m here to liberate your country. Why don’t you trust me?
Rating: 9 out of 10
In the years since we proved the motto “these colors never run” don’t include instances of running into other people’s countries under wildly false pretenses; we’ve seen the theaters filled with film after film dealing with the incredibly varied viewpoints of the Iraq War. Some are for the war, many are against, but all deal with the stresses and toil that it takes on the soldiers sent over there to protect us from afar and protect the civilians in that country from themselves. The biggest fear for any film covering this topic now is whether the audiences have seen it all. What more could possibly be brought to light after the 24-hour news cycle has been raking this story over the coals for nearly eight years? The answer coming from Hollywood seems to be making the stories more and more personal, connect them to individual soldiers and stories, whether they are true or based on true situations. We know why they are fighting, but we don’t always know who they are and that’s what still intrigues audiences.
The Hurt Locker centers around a bomb disposal unit in Iraq, dealing with car bombs, IEDs and any variety of homemade roadside explosive device. A new unit leader, Staff Sergeant James, finds himself trying to keep unit cohesion while not letting go of his unorthodox style of bomb defusing. Tempers flare, egos are tested, but the whole group must find a way to work together in order to keep themselves alive in their constantly hostile surroundings.
“Rare” is the first word that comes to mind when I describe this movie. In a project filled with so much inherent tension, very few are able to walk the hair thin line between too much tension, which would shut your audience down in some numb coma-type state, or too little tension, which would leave your audience bored and feeling as if the subject matter was taken too lightly. The story, the pacing and the intensity is handled beautifully by director Kathryn Bigelow, who really has had a intensely varied style of filmmaking ranging from the epitome of surfer action flicks, Point Break, to the turn-of-the-millennium sci-fi acid trip, Strange Days. No matter where she brings her vision, it always results in something unique to the current filmic landscape. With Hurt Locker, Bigelow paints a picture of three soldiers with completely different outlooks on their situation and she manages to give them all equal weight, which is an accomplishment in itself. She also is very specific with her use of camera tricks, like slow motion, so when they do appear in the film they don’t get lost in a sea of quick cuts, lens flares or unnecessary explosions. Overall it was a great effort from Bigelow and should keep her in the good graces of the Hollywood system for years to come.
Taking on the stresses of the bomb-busting trio are Jeremy Renner (Staff Sergeant James), Anthony Mackie (Sergeant Sandborn) and Brian Geraghty (Specialist Eldridge). Renner takes the point position here and leads the trio through the film with a wildcat mentality and seemingly careless attitude towards death on the job. This might have come off as a one note performance for Renner were it not for the brilliant script and the arc which his character travels. Mackie and Geragthy both show their initial discomfort with working for their new unit leader in different fashions. Mackie does a great job keeping the strong face and trying to remind Renner that they are all a team and must work together, but Geragthy has a more youthful persona and he becomes an endearing soul to the audience, swinging back and forth between emotionally shell-shocked and frantically fighting for his own freedom. Truly toned performances all around.
The Hurt Locker feels a great deal like what The Kingdom wanted to be. A balanced social commentary about life on the ground in the war zone balanced with action and tension to keep the audiences involved and attuned to the fact they weren’t watching a documentary.
Recommendation: If it is still playing in a theater near you, check it out. The sound design alone is reason enough to not wait for DVD. If you can’t catch it on the big screen, don’t worry, the performances and poignancy of the film still carries through. Plus, you could just turn up your TV really loud.
Tags: anthony mackie, bomb defusing, bomb making, brian geraghty, fiction, iraq war, jeremy renner, kathryn bigelow, movie review, movies, opinion, point break, screenwriting, strange days, the hurt locker, the kingdom, war
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