Film Review: The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker has been surrounded by Oscar hype since the film was released overseas months ago, and with good reason: it is masterpiece of suspense.  If Avatar (also nominated in this year’s Academy Awards, and directed by, as you’ve no doubt heard, Kathryn Bigelow’s ex-husband James Cameron) represents the quantity-of-special-effects over quality-of-script film formula, then The Hurt Locker represents the opposite equation. Though visually sparse, the film is emotionally rich.

The Hurt Locker follows the trials of one of America’s military bomb squad units in Iraq.  They are, while not on the front line, certainly always in the line of fire. In each bomb squad, two men stand watch: each movement in the streets is a potential threat and every civilian a potential terrorist. The third member of the team dons what appears to be a space suit, and works on untangling spider webs of electrical wires – literally with a bomb on their hands. After one such bomb explodes, killing the team’s technical exert, Sergeant JT Sanbor (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) are assigned a new leader, SSG William James (Jeremy Renner). While James, at first, seems the least crippled by the war– his dangerous risk-taking shows that he is just as damaged as his teammates, if not even more deeply so. The fact that James appears untroubled by the war proves exactly how troubled he truly is.

The landscapes and location in The Hurt Locker are used to great effect: the dry desert shots are isolating, the buzzing flies are infuriating, and the bombed and broken streets of Iraq are terrifying.  However, the real strength of the film is not the cinematography, but rather, how the film manages to say so much while the characters say so little.  The claustrophobic and war-torn alleyways are not nearly as dangerous as the damaged psychological landscapes of the soldiers.  We watch their deterioration over the course of the film, and Renner in particular shows us how a man can be scarred by the atrocities of war, while still addicted to the adrenalin of it.

Ultimately, The Hurt Locker is a sympathetic look at a soldier’s situation — but it is never sympathetic to the situation itself, or the aggression that engenders it or is exacerbated by it. This is not a film that glorifies war, or beautifies the consequences. Whether or not it comes out on top at this year’s Oscars, it will be remembered in the years to come as one of the most precise and provoking films about the world post-9/11 in recent years.  And a far more emotional picture of imperialism and warfare than Avatar could ever provide.

Interview with Kathryn Bigelow:

The Hurt Locker is screening nationally in Australian now

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Cast: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Ralph Fiennes, Guy Pearce

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