The Hurt Locker - Review

THE HURT LOCKER is a perfect depiction of modern warfare. The hand-held cinematography might seem to be the reason for this assessment, but it lies more on Kathryn Bigelow's direction and the script by Mark Boal. These two create a genuinely scary look at the fears that plague an United States military unit tasked with defusing bombs in Baghdad. Throughout the 131 minutes of this film, you begin to notice that these individuals not only have to deactivate the shoddy explosives in front of them, but also has to prevent the emotional bombs in themselves and the civilians watching them.

Bravo Company receives a new head of their bomb disposal unit after the previous Staff Sergeant is KIA in the prologue. Enter Will James (Jeremy Renner), whose swaggering posture and recklessness pisses off the surviving crew of Sgt. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty). This arrogant style seems to be justified; James reveals that he has disassembled more than 800 bombs while on duty. This plot element of "the new guy meets the old crew" has often been used in media but Mark Boal deservedly ends it right there. Like in real life, the new trio must accept each other immediately in order to survive and to continue to operate. The rest of the story then follows a highlighted series of events as the unit reach the end of their tour of duty.

It is a bit hard for me to criticize the film because of how well made it is. Each of the events is highly suspenseful, with most of it coming from the simple notion of communicating and interacting with Iraqi civilians. The soldiers have to guess and second guess every time they see one of the residents seeing them. The paranoia spreads more and more as the bombs get more complicated thus creating more time for anything to happen. This causes the risks to heighten and create an immense sense of dread, except for James who somehow doesn't let it faze him.

There has been a lot of acclaim regarding Jeremy Renner's performance as James and it does live up to the hype. Renner only lets the true emotions of his character to appear in brief moments except for one special event. This event is truly shocking to behold as James loses his cool exterior and his morality becomes far more jaded to define. Is his decision made to prove a point to the insurgents or to defuse his own emotions by planting them within another bomb?

While the story is great with its verisimilitude and life-like dialogue, there are some scenes that broke my suspension of belief. The film has included brief sub-plots involving two Colonels, each of whom have a different opinion on handling with populace. This yin-yang inclusion just feel contrived and basic to have in a war film. What's more is that you will obviously know what's going to happen to them on the battlefield. But, since these scenes are short, they can be forgiven.

You will come out of this film with a lot of questions but that is the point. War doesn't give you any answers for the violent decisions of human beings, so you must deal with it in your own way.

FINAL REVIEW: 4 / 5