Catholic in Film School

Finally.

I finally saw a summer action flick worth the paper it was made on.

The Hurt Locker (2008) is an “Iraq movie” about the elite bomb squad of Bravo Company.  At the beginning of the film, Bravo Company has 38 days left until the end of its tour. Understandably, the three person bomb squad is being extremely careful on each mission until they can finally go home….that is until their staff sergeant played by Guy Pearce gets blown up within the first ten minutes of the film. Yikes.

Enter stage left Staff Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) the replacement for Pearce. As it turns out, James is a bit of rebel, ignoring SOP by doing things like throwing smoke bombs and turning off his radio, thereby thoroughly pissing off his fellow squad members Sgt. JT Sanborn (played wonderfully by newcomer Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty).

For another 30-40 minutes the film positions James as the bad guy and antihero, Sanborn as the leader and patriarch, and Owen as the young rookie that apparently has some mental issues for which he is seeing the base’s psychologist. The story then becomes whether or not the squad can bond in order to perform their job effectively and most importantly…safely. Eventually they do bond (sort of), but that doesn’t change anyone’s personality. James is still wild and reckless, and the audience begins to ask, “Will James’s antics kill his new friends?”

I have to say I was surprised by how much I liked this film.  I was on the edge of my seat the entire time.  I appreciated the classic screenplay structure—just when I thought the characters’ situation couldn’t get any worse…oh…it did. I appreciated each character for his own merit, even James. Though The Hurt Locker is an action film, it does an excellent job of delving into each character’s past without the mushy nonsense that would take away from the main plot.  There are no flashbacks, just strong storytelling in the present tense.

I believe I’ve written before that I’m a Navy baby from a law enforcement family and pretty much the only one of my hometown friends that did not enlist or go on to some sort of military academy after high school. In short, I am hyper-sensitive to any and all anti-military bias, the reason why every other Iraq movie did not succeed at the box office.  I thought The Hurt Locker did a pretty good job of avoiding this. The film doesn’t make statements about the war, but rather tells the story of three men who despite being very different from each other must work together and take care of each other in order to go home alive.  And I think veterans will enjoy some of the darkly humorous inside jokes that only one versed in military culture would understand.

Coming from a citizen’s POV, the film appeared to do a great job of communicating the high stress level of the nature of the war in Iraq. Each mission the squad goes on is a response to an IED threat, suicide bomber, or car bomb. The second the squad steps of the base they are in danger. Everyone is a suspect, even children.  Curiously enough, the film doesn’t take an “us vs. them” approach. Action sequences contain shots of both our heroes and our bad guys, increasing the tension of the story and avoiding any political statements about the war.

One thing that did annoy me was the occasional slow motion shot. I don’t have anything against slow motion, but in the context of the film it seemed to be out-of-step with the otherwise realistic cinematography. And is it just me or is the title really random?

On another note, I’ve read some commentary about the “surprise” of some that the director is a female. Well as someone who has been in film school for quite some time, I am certainly not surprised because God knows sometimes—just sometimes—boys like to make things go Kaboom! so much so that the film is destroyed. (Exhibit A: That robot franchise.) Sometimes it takes a woman to navigate the subtleties. Just sayin…

Not sure how long The Hurt Locker will remain in theaters, but I totally recommend you see it at some point.