The Hurt Locker
It is impossible to sit through The Hurt Locker, without a knot in your stomach and your teeth on edge. This gritty fictional portrayal of a U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal team on duty in Iraq in 2004 appears at first to be a documentary thanks to the imagery and violent action in this intense war film.
Shot in Jordan on the Iraq border in forty-four days from July to September 2007, the film was written by Mark Boal, a first time screenwriter. Embedded with a bomb squad during the height of the Iraq war surge, that experience was the source for the story. All Iraqi roles were played by displaced Iraqi war refugees forced to leave their country.
The camera rides along with the bomb squad members and never lets the viewer escape the chaotic circumstances facing the squad. Your eyes never leave the target or Jeremy Renner as Staff Sergeant William James goes about defusing bombs in wild abandonment of ordinary safety procedures. Every step he takes is a matter of life and death and it suits him as war is an addiction and he needs that adrenalin rush.
Anxiety and the tension of battle are in every frame. Anthony Mackie as Sergeant JT Sanborn, and Brian Geraghty, as Specialist Owen Eldridge, struggle with James’ indifference to danger and death. His fascination with the mechanics of bomb mechanisms and the challenge of unscrambling them is vital to his persona and maddening to others.
There are hideous death scenes and outrage is palpable when James discovers a young Iraqi boy he’s befriended is killed and his body is wired to be used as a body bomb.
Seeking revenge for this tragedy, James lurches out after dark to an area where no one can be trusted and insurgents stay ready to reek destruction and death for their causes.
Ralph Fiennes, a contractor team leader is discovered by the team in time for a firefight in the desert. Guy Pearce as sergeant Matt Thompson, has a short role before a stray bullet gets him. David Morse as Colonel Reed has a brief cameo.
This American war thriller has been acclaimed the best film yet about the Iraq war. It is so real viewers can feel the heat, the sweat dripping off their bodies, smell the garbage and excrement and then decompress after killing people in a wild drunken physical encounter with the squad.
The film has captured four five nominations, three premieres and festival screenings, plus the AFI Dallas 2009 Film Festival gave an award to director Kathryn Bigelow. Don’t look for your date to accompany you to the film, as it is a sobering view of how and where many of our more than 4,000 men and women gave their lives. And the questions about why continue.
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