Review: The Hurt Locker (2009)

[Mark R. Leeper]

                         THE HURT LOCKER
                (a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

     CAPSULE: An American diffuser from a bomb squad
     in 2004 Bagdad goes from one white-knuckle situation
     to the next.  Just 38 days from being released to go
     home, SFC William James takes one risk after another
     because he cannot give up the excitement of the
     hazardous game.  The film is also an education in
     just how the bomb-defusing job is done.  We see two
     robots defusing the bombs and one is Staff Sgt. James.
     We never get to really know any other side of James.
     He is an addict of the game he plays, and we do not
     know if there is much human inside him.  Rating:
     +2 (-4 to +4) or 7/10

This is an almost documentary-like portrait of a man who enjoys his
job and goes into episode after episode with gusto.  It is a job
that most people would assume nobody would like.  The job is
defusing or detonating bombs (technically IEDs or Improvised
explosive devices) in Iraq.  SFC William James (played by Jeremy
Renner) likes living on the very edge.  He is like a chess master
who glories in keeping ten games going at once, knowing he will
beat every single opponent.  What is more, he is willing to play
with very uneven payoff.  If a bomb maker loses, he looses a few
hours work and some explosives.  James is betting his life and the
lives of others.  And he does this over and over and over under the
watchful eyes of people each of whom could be a bystander or could
hold the detonator.  To this point he has always won.  But when he
worked on the first bomb he ever defused he was pushing his luck.
Doing it repeatedly while disobeying orders, exasperating his squad
leader (Anthony Mackie), and trying to do anything in those
cumbersome padded anti-explosion suits goes beyond just pushing his
luck.  He is committing slow motion suicide.  Why does he love this
job?  Is it the beauty of his surroundings, exotic Bagdad in 2004?
That is not very likely.  It appears to be just that he loves the
competition and cannot give up playing the game.  It is an
obsession with him that he continues to play, like a kid with a
video game.  He knows he is good and that makes it impossible for
him to stop.

Kathryn Bigelow, director of action films like STRANGE DAYS and
K-19: THE WIDOWMAKER directs a film written by Boal.  Curiously for
such a tense film, the pacing is really slow.  A lot of the game is
standing still and sizing up your opponent(s) and jockeying for a
better position and maybe waiting out a sniper.  That takes time
and slows the pace.  The film could tell us more about what is
going on inside the characters, but Bigelow passes up that
opportunity.

Almost everything else is done well.  The cinematography by Barry
Ackroyd puts you even a little nearer to the action than you would
choose to be.  The style is very realistic, except for occasional
touches like slow motion to show the dark beauty of a detonation.
Other times James in his padded suit looks like he is walking on
the moon.  There are not even opening titles so that from the first
frame the viewer is pulled into the action.  One thing pulls us out
a little.  I did not recognize Renner, but several all-to-familiar
actors show up in small roles and pull us out of the action with
the game of "Is that...  No.  Oh wait, yes it is."  If you think
you see Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes, or David Morse, yes, that is
him.  Go back to the movie.  If you think you have seen George
Clooney, he is not there.

The film opens with a quote from Chris Hedges saying that war is a
drug.  The drug is adrenaline and its rush does seem to be
addictive for people like SFC William James.  The film makes that
quite clear, but I am not sure it says a whole lot more than that.
The film is quite a ride, it could have said so much more.  I rate
THE HURT LOCKER a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 7/10.  I missed where
the title comes from unless it suggests that James keeps all pain
locked up inside him.

Film Credits: <http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0887912/>

What others are saying:
<http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/hurt_locker/>

					Mark R. Leeper
					mleeper at optonline.net
					Copyright 2010 Mark R. Leeper