Ever since Kathryn Bigelow made a splash with her “vampire western,” it was thought that she would one day produce a masterpiece. That day has come. The Hurt Locker is one of the year’s best films.
Set in Iraq, The Hurt Locker is not about any particular war – this one just happens to be handy and provides an immediate frame of reference. Rather, this is a film about the effects of war on those who fight in them – in this case, members of a team of bomb experts.
The film opens as the team – Sgt. Matt Thompson [Guy Pearce], Sgt. JT Sanborn [Anthony Mackie] and Specialist Owen Eldridge [Brian Geraghty] assemble and head out on a mission – a mission that results in the death of Thompson, the team leader. He is replaced by Staff-Sgt. William James [Jeremy Renner].
Where Thompson’s team was a true team, under James’ command, it seems to be more of a one-show, at first. [James is the hot dog who takes of his armor suit in the trailer and says, “If I die, I’m going to die comfortable.] As the film progresses, we begin to realize that each team member has his own problems: Renner takes chances because he has become addicted to the risk-taking; Sanborn is a team player who is not much for improvisation, and Eldridge is fixated on his own death.
Even though each of team members has issues, in the end they do their jobs – sometimes not as well as they’d like, and sometimes against their better judgement. There is a quote at the beginning of the film that ends with these words, “war is a drug.” In those terms, Renner is an addict, while Sanborn and Eldridge are not – though they do act as enablers at certain points in the film.
Mark Boal’s script is very detailed and yet filled with the kind of suspense that comes from knowing the characters well enough to care when they go into life-threatening action. Bigelow takes Boal’s detail and builds suspense by layering those details into each potentially dangerous situation. There’s nothing particularly fancy about the way she’s shot The Hurt Locker – in fact her direction is practically invisible.
The Hurt Locker unfolds before us like real moments from the team’s lives. The entire cast is excellent, but Renner, especially, gives a bravura performance. His risk-taking hot dog has an unexpected weariness to him, like a drug addict who seems to be high-functioning until the rush wears off. It’s a performance that shows Renner’s range [he was the one cop on The Unusuals who was normal] to great effect.
If you haven’t seen The Hurt Locker yet, you should definitely put it in your schedule.
Final Grade: A+
I like these types of movies..