Review: The Hurt Locker

Talk about a movie that an audience member still thinks about days after wandering into a darkened, air conditioned theater to partake, "The Hurt Locker" is a tense military combat thriller. The setting is our current Iraq war, Baghdad 2004, and the film follows an army unit that defuses IEDs. This war film is arguably the best and most intelligent movie made on the Iraq war.

The theme is setup at the very beginning of the film, "The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug." (a quote by Christopher Hedges). Why are soldiers, only some not all, seemingly addicted to the chaos of conflict? These are the questions that the film asks.

Staff Sgt William James (brilliantly played by Jeremy Renner) is the central character of the film. He is not a summer action, cartoonish character but a bomb defusing specialist. His calmness in situations defusing a bomb, his cocky swagger, and even his reckless attitude becomes a rather disturbing matter for the two guys he works with- Sgt. JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty). Sgt James walks confidently toward a bomb in the middle of an Iraqi street, maybe in full view of the person who planted the bomb whom the audience suspects may be looking down upon the situation from a balcony or tower nearby...waiting with a cell phone. One scene has James taking off his bomb suit declaring that there is a big enough bomb to "blow us all to Jesus" so he wants to die comfortably without a suit on...if he dies at all.

The suspense that this film generates is uncanny. It's one thing for a movie to have lots of action and characters who swing machine guns around wildly. It's quite another to have a movie get under an audience's members skin and almost kill them with sheer tension. One can feel the painstaking detail and every ounce of terror as these troops work to diffuse roadside bombs. Hitchcock would have been proud of this film.

The director of this movie is Kathryn Bigelow, a veteran of film whom most people are probably not familiar. One can only imagine how hard she had to lobby to get a film like this made among a bunch of politically correct Hollywood studio heads who want highly budgeted toy commercials made. A person can almost sense the criticism she received,"Why should a woman direct a movie about guys in war?" (There aren't that many female directors in Hollywood oddly enough). Well, she absolutely nails this movie and should be (if this film gets the attention it deserves) on the short list for a best director nomination. Not only is this movie impeccably made, it features great acting from a largely unknown cast. My belief is that great acting from people not as established or from bad actors who happen to turn in a good performance is unequivocally related to a great director. Finally, this was filmed on location in Jordan (which neighbors Iraq) and reportedly, there was trouble finding a production crew that was willing to go to the middle east to make this film to create the aura of authenticity.

Most importantly the movie tells a great story and doesn't delve into political discussions of the Iraq war. This is not about crackpot, liberal politicians preaching to us about this desert war from the confines of their air conditioned Washington DC office. Nor is this about millionaire, blowhard radio talk show hosts who drape themselves in flags and talk about situations of which they have never been involved. This is about the feelings of those in combat as they are consistently involved with painstaking life and death situations and impossible moral dilemmas. One moment, their buddy is next to them and joking with them. The very next moment, he is gone forever in the midst of chaotic and out of control battle. Why would someone become addicted to these situations? How could they get to the point where they love a situation like this even more than they love their family back at home?

The film is too smart to offer any easy answers. My friend, who has been to Iraq, says this is the most accurate movie he has seen on this war which speaks to the exhaustive research of screenwriter Mark Boal, director Bigelow and lead actor Jeremy Renner (who reminds us of a young Russell Crowe). It stands as one of the best movies I have seen in 2009. Now, it needs more attention and more people seeing this work. That means you.