"The Hurt Locker" review...the film Michael Bay wishes he could make!

After six long years it has finally happened. Yes the war in Iraq is slowly coming to a close and we get another treat on top of that: the first great film about the war. It succeeds by sucking the viewer in from the very start. It leaves the politics at the door and lets the viewer experience the war through intense, unpredictable action and complex human drama. It was expertly crafted by Katherine Bigelow and it is the best film directed by a woman since “Frozen River” as well as one of the best action thrillers of the year.

Anthony Mackie ( he played Tupac in “Notorious”) plays JT Sanborn and Brain Geraghty plays Owen Eldrige, two soldiers assigned to what seems to be the most dangerous job in the military: the bomb squad. The squad usually consists of three soldiers: Sanborn watches from a safe distance near the car, Eldrige provides cover fire at a closer distance, and the third unlucky soul is the bomb technician, the poor guy who has to diffuse the bombs when the little Wall-E robot cant get the job done. They lumber towards the bomb in heavy uncomfortable suits. If the bomb goes off while thier close, getting clear out of the way of the explosion is nearly impossible.



The first technician is played by Guy Pierce. A critical error in the field ends his screen time early, and the second technician is brought in: Sgt. William James, an experienced veteran who claims he’s diffused more then 800 bombs.
Sgt. James isn’t what Sanborn and Eldgrige expected. He’s extremely reckless and seems to be devoid of any emotion. He has no fear or concern for his own safety, and at times the safety of his peers. The only that matters to him is his job and he doesn’t mind dying to get it done. When confronted with a massive and complicated bomb he removes his safety suit so that just in case he dies, he can die in comfort. He’s just that crazy.



Sgt. James is played by Jeremy Renner who gives a surprisingly powerful breakout performance, maybe the best breakout performance you may see this year. He plays a character holding a deep emotional pain inside and his performance gives the right kind of subtlety the role requires. In the middle of the film he finds another note and becomes intense, and he pulls it off just as well as the much calmer side. This is a man who does have emotion but the duty of war has pushed them deep inside, and a horrible tragedy happens to bring those emotions back out.



The main conflict of the story comes from the interactions between James and Sanborn. Sgt. James’s decisions constantly put the team in dangerous situations. Sanborn has concern for human life while Sgt. James clearly doesn’t, and of course they constantly clash. The script uses these situations it intensify the human drama. Eldgrige and Sanborn fear that Sgt. James will be the cause of their deaths. The very much want to live even if James doesn’t. In one scene the trio finds themselves alone in the desert. They could kill Sgt. James and no one would ever find out. But Sgt. James is an excellent soldier which makes any decision to get rid of him even harder.This is only the beginning of many moral dilemmas the characters are faced with.



Not since the jungles of Vietnam has a war setting been so frightening unpredictable. Bombs could be laying anywhere in the ground and bullets seem to materialize out of thin air. You never know when a battle could begin or who will die next. No character is immune to death. The towns are filled with people who sometimes watch the chaos of war from a safe distance. Could they be the enemy? Any innocent bystander could be the enemy waiting for a solider to make a mistake. Something as simple and common as a cell phone could be used to trigger an explosive. When it seems that a pedestrian holding a cell phone could be an enemy with a detonator, one character must decide whether or not to shoot him in a matter of seconds. His choice ends with death one way or another.



Bigelow and her photographer Barry Ackroyd bring the scenery to life by focusing on the harsh grittiness of the desert terrain. Thick clouds on sand are always flying into the camera lens. The ground is covered with layers of sand, dirt, and debris accumulated from years of death, destruction and decay. During an intense battle, a sniper stays in a prone position for a long amount of time and the sand accumulates on his face with each passing moment. When a bomb goes off the camera captures the powerful image of a rusted car being disintegrated into nothing. This film is a perfect example of craft and attention to detail in film making. Their can be beauty in any thing, even explosions.

There will be no shortage of explosions in this, or any summer, but this is the only action movie that reminds us that explosions kill people. You can try to run but you can only get so far from flying shrapnel along the destructive force a bomb sends through the ground. There is another director who has a fondness for explosions, his last name rhymes with day. I can imagine him watching this film and feeling jealous, then sad, that for all the money and power he wields he could never make a film like this and deep down he probably wants to. Then I can imagine him visiting IMDB and realizing it was made by a woman, a remarkably talented woman that dwarfs his own talent.



“The Hurt Locker” is the work of a true artist, and if there are only a few female directors left in the movies Katherine Bigelow should be mentioned as one of the best and one of the best action directors. Bow down to the queen.