In the summer of 2004, Sergeant J.T. Sanborn and Specialist Owen Eldridge of Bravo Company are at the volatile center of the war, part of a small counterforce specifically trained to handle the homemade bombs, or Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), that account for more than half of American hostile deaths and have killed thousands of Iraqis. A high-pressure, high-stakes assignment, the job leaves..
It is not difficult to carry the message of the SUSS Hurt Locker, as it starts with this quote from The New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges: “The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug.” Then, just to make sure all the words except for “war is a drug” fade from the screen.
That is the only UN-subtle moment in Kathryn Bigelow’s otherwise sharp film, a close, exciting action drama, which is in Baghdad in 2004. Like almost every film about the Iraq war, the Hurt Locker is on the war in general, not specific, and even when it’s so much about the mechanics of combat, like the psychology of IT. It is a film about a squad of bomb technicians, the men who have to decide whether, to the red wire or the blue wire. Even a semi-professional film makers could be that something entertaining and Bigelow – Director of the male films like Point Break, Strange Days “and” K-19: The Widowmaker – continues to grow by haunting emotional resonance to the surface – level thrill.
Written by Mark Boal, a journalist whose reporting was the basis for the Valley of Elah (another Iraq movie), The Hurt Locker is a three-man Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) in the U.S. Army by a brash young Staff Sergeant named William James (Jeremy Renner). James is new to the company but already a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq operations, and he is so familiar with the protocols thereto, to the security – even to the possibility of death, at any rate – that he feels comfortable to ignore.
That is frightening, sgt. J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), his next in command. The film begins cleverly, before James’ arrival, with an intense bomb defusing scene, serves a dual purpose, as being very dramatic and shows us how the procedure should be done. Sanborn is a Stickler for the common-sense details of the assistance of another specialist by a potentially deadly situation (the way you might a ‘Stickler’ for your eyes open when you drive), and is angry when James failed to be . The third member of the team, Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), is not from another soldier to death that he believes he could have prevented if he had acted more decisively.
It is not that James is foolish if. A man shall not live by so many IED defusings as it is, without knowing what he does. For him, the experience is a race. Why send a remote-controlled robot to a possible explosive device, you can stroll over and check it out yourself? James comes from enthusiasm to discover how much potential devastation before it, not happy, because he takes it easy, but precisely because he is not at all easy. When he opens a trunk, a huge, complicated bomb, his reaction: “Oh, God” is not exciting, but a real terror – and that is what he loves. For each task, he immediately lit a cigarette, as if with a satisfactory sexual encounter. In one case he himself says: “That was good.”
Over time, James Sanborn, Eldridge and come to understand each other, mourning the mistakes of the past, during bonding, in their off hours, such as certain types of men (ie, by getting drunk and taking turns punching each other). Contexts, as a team, even the evidence of their value as a sniper in a quietly gripping systems sequence, the enemy sniper.
Minor characters, the likes of Ralph Fiennes, David Morse, Guy Pearce, and appear, where necessary, but James is the film is the central concern, with Sanborn and Eldridge directly behind him. Jeremy Renner, a recognizable but not very well known actor (he starred version of the short-lived TV series 2009 The Unusuals), which is like a star performance, the staff sgt. James, the kind of authentic, fully realized characterization, which almost automatically earn a famous actor an Oscar nomination. Anthony Mackie (We Are Marshall) is also strong as the soldier, reluctantly to his friend, and Brian Geraghty (soon to be known for effectively using Practice) supports vulnerable than Eldridge.
But still remains, for me, something is missing. I have the movie twice and not even look at the ‘unspeakable tingling at the base of my spine, “as Roger Ebert says that between a very good movie from a big one. It could be that the sequence, where James is looking for answers, what happened to the Iraqi boy who calls himself Beckham (Christopher Sayegh) appears as a dead end, plot-wise, and my befuddlement with it prevents me from the lovable movie as much as I like. Anyway, the Hurt Locker is indeed very, very good, tense and compelling as an action-drama, as you are responsible to see the whole year.
