The Hurt Locker

Overview

War is a drug.

Or so Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break) and journalist turned screenwriter Mark Boal (In the Valley of Elah) would have us believe. After being embedded with an Explosive Ordinance Disposal team, Boal has written an incisive character study of bomb technician SSG William James (Jeremy Renner), who chases a very different dragon across the streets of Baghdad. Throwing audiences straight into the mix, Bigelow focuses on James joining a new team as the days tick down on the final weeks of their rotation. Already frayed by loss, Sgt. JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Spc. Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) are immediately affronted by James' cowboy, cocksure antics. Dismissing the (relative) safety of the bomb robot, James instead opts to suit up — into the weighty, claustrophobic pretence of a protective suit — and come face-to-face with the devices of his would-be killers. His courage borders too close to nihilism for the comfort of his team, who seem as impressed with his skills as they are sure that he'll be the death of them all.

However, for all this tension, and all the bombs, The Hurt Locker is an evocatively sparse film. Bigelow is unafraid of silence, letting her characters breathe in the uncertainty of their surroundings. Superb cameos by Guy Pierce and Ralph Fiennes further underscore the razor-sharp precipice on which they all teeter, while Barry Ackroyd's (United 93) athletic cinematography adds a further layer of subjectivity to a reality that resonates very differently with each soldier. It's quite remarkable spending over two hours in the midst of Bigelow's taut procedural. While she and Boal are less successful with some of their other character arcs, their portrait of adrenaline addiction and James' confounding call to arms is a singular cinematic experience.