The Hurt Locker
Starring: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty Director: Kathryn Bigelow Category: IIB
About midway into The Hurt Locker, a Yale-educated army psychiatrist is seen counselling a young soldier about the recurrent bouts of anguish he feels for being in Iraq and, specifically, a mistake that he believes has cost the life of his team leader. 'You know, this doesn't have to be a bad time in your life - going to war can be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, it could be fun,' the shrink says. Miffed, the marine retorts: 'But you need to come out from behind the wire, and see what we do.'
It's an exchange that hints at a future narrative twist - the psychiatrist eventually goes on patrol with his patient - with fatal consequences. The conversation can also be seen as voicing The Hurt Locker's ethos: rather than trading on discussions about the justness of American military interventions around the world, Kathryn Bigelow wades into the action to examine the psyche of the common soldier forced to confront death and destruction on a daily basis.
Having said that, the film is certainly sceptical of the so-called war on terror, as shown when a central character comments on how brutalising the local population will only encourage ordinary people to become insurgents.
The Hurt Locker combines powerful action scenes with empathetic, genuine human characters who speak about the human condition in the face of danger. The film continually confronts the audience with searing imagery, such as its spellbinding first sequence focusing on the potentially deadly work of the US Army's bomb disposal unit in Baghdad.
But Bigelow is more interested in looking at the pathological nature of modern warfare. In fact, The Hurt Locker begins with a quote pulled from war correspondent Chris Hedges' book, War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning: 'The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug.'
And it's around such a junkie that The Hurt Locker revolves: the film's protagonist, Will James (played brilliantly by Jeremy Renner), is the leader of the US Army's Explosive Ordnance Disposal squad. He's a loose cannon of sorts, someone jaded (he has disarmed 873 bombs) or reckless enough to go about his work with little concern for personal safety or operational protocol.
What follows is a string of vignettes during which his gung-ho veneer is peeled away, revealing the contradictions and torment tearing at him while on and off duty. He reveals more about his inner demons as he gets better acquainted with his horrified subordinates, the strait-laced Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and the increasingly distraught Eldridge (Brian Geraghty).
The Hurt Locker is shot in cinema verite style, which adds to the urgency and authenticity of the action, suggesting that it is a slice of real life rather than a self-contained representation of the general picture in Iraq, which might then involve a more nuanced reflection of international geo-politics.
Even then, The Hurt Locker bears the hallmark of Bigelow's previous films: masculinity is shown to be in crisis and is found wanting in the protagonists' need to resolve their issues. Bigelow has delivered a solid piece which is visually mesmerising, but also raises the question of why these scenes continue to enthral societies watching the war on their televisions and computer screens.
The Hurt Locker opens today
