Movie Review: The Hurt Locker

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The Hurt Locker (2009)–****

The eagerness to embrace Kathryn Bigelow’s film The Hurt Locker may seem like a direct response to the almost universal rejection of the clumsy, overtly political Iraq War films that we saw hit the screen two years ago. It’s true that The Hurt Locker is not a Lions for Lambs or an In the Valley of Elah. Instead, Bigelow’s tense psychological thriller, set the second year of the Iraq War, will be the picture by which all other Iraq War films are judged.

The film follows an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team on a series of missions in Baghdad in 2004. When the original team leader (Guy Pearce) is killed in an IED blast, Staff Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) comes on to lead Sgt. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Eldriged (Brian Geraghty) into tense situations where a bomb or bombs need defused.

James is a wild man, as other soldiers call him. He appears fearless, but mostly lives off the adrenaline rush of going into situations where he’s likely to end up dead. Sanborn doesn’t like James reckless style, which will either kill James or all of them. As the casualties and unstopped explosions wear on James and his subordinates, they just try and survive, both literally and figuratively, until their tour of duty is over.

If Vietnam War films are about the dehumanizing effects of combat, then Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker is about showing us just how human these soldiers really are. It’s not the first film to paint that picture (Kimberly Pierce’s AWOL soldier movie Stop Loss did that well too). But it is the first to do it with such riveting intensity.

Renner is one of the primary reasons the film is so intense. This recognizable, but under-appreciated character actor has always been fierce without being showy. With James, Renner is able to tap into his obvious talents, but the character also allows him to exhibit a vulnerability that he and the film need.

When we first encounter James, his fearless heroics make it seem as if we’re about to watch a mid-20^th century film about a cowboy war hero. Soon, though, we see the chink in his armor. He develops a relationship with a young Iraqi boy, one that will ultimately lead him to a pattern of truly reckless, even self-destructive behavior. The Hurt Locker triumphs because the adrenaline buzz we share with the characters merely pulls us in so that we are forced to reconsider the notion of the motion picture soldier.

The men here aren’t super human. They aren’t made to be inhuman. We don’t cheer their actions or scorn them. Instead we empathize. While that may not be the political statement that some viewers want from an Iraq War film, Bigelow’s ability to make us feel, with staggering force, the effects of modern war on our soldiers may change the way we view this and hopefully all future conflicts. There’s nothing apolitical about that.

The Hurt Locker, starring Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty, with Ralph Fiennes and Guy Pearce, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, is now playing in select cities.