Real war as it should be portrayed

Rating: 10/10 (28 August 2009)

Going to watch 'The Hurt Locker,' I was naively unaware of the talents of one Kathryn Bigelow. Having now seen the film, I find myself wanting more, much more. This is of course the main theme throughout the film. From the offset we are made to think about a quote from war journalist Chris Hedges and standout phrase that 'war is a drug.' We soon learn exactly why. The opening scene sets the tone perfectly as a seemingly simple and straightforward procedure to end a bomb threat goes terribly awry. The familiar washed out look of many Gulf War films is there (Three Kings, Jarhead), but somehow it is fresh and new as Bigelow paces the proceedings so that the audience are only too aware of the bleak surroundings as are the soldiers on the front line as shaky hand-held camera work puts the audience there too (Barry Ackroyd delivering a gritty, very real scope). This paranoia that anything or anyone could be a threat is established. Watch as an approaching civilian seemingly distracts Sgt. JT Sanborn (the no nonsense Anthony Mackie,) heightening tension that is surrounding Sgt. Matt Thompson's (Guy Pierce) bomb disposal squad so that even the slightest of inklings to a threat as a mobile phone is missed, resulting in the horrific end to this incident . Jeremy Renner's Sgt. William James now takes over as Bravo Company's bomb disposal squad staff sergeant. Immediately he is carefree and alarmingly self assured to the particular annoyance of Sanborn. Despite this lack of professionalism as team leader, we fully believe that James is more than capable of doing the job right (he has disarmed over 800 bombs so far.) Walking head strong into the arena, James disarms with ease; it is mainly the surroundings that Bigelow uses to add a daunting prospect and tension. As James gets on with his work, the audience are with Sanborn and Special Owen Eldridge (the painfully torn Brian Geraghty) as they assess the threat and will themselves to be out of harm's way as soon as possible. Contrasting Sanborn and Eldridge's desire to be safe and precarious, James keeps little momentums ('signatures') from each bomb he disarms, revelling in the fact that it could've killed him as we understand that this is James' drug. The much talked about scene where Bravo Company meet up with British mercenaries is a thing of frustrating and never ending tension that excites and grips more than anything I have seen all summer as detail is lost in the distant desert as snipers pick out this meeting, we witness a drawn out and mind numbingly sparse stake out that Bigelow is in no rush to conclude. The tight angles reveal little and the unknown enemy who fire from off screen create a claustrophobic atmosphere, even in the expansive land. A film not about 'war' as such in the political sense, it is about those in war and how they deal with the pressure, whether they love it or hate it. Eldridge seems to have found a Father figure in lesser character Col. John Cambridge (Christian Camargo) and is agonisingly torn between his affections for Sanborn and James as role models. Sanborn, the ever professional does not like the risks and carelessness of James and is not afraid to express this and yet, in the end, we see a broken man who seemingly envies James. Then Renner as James gives the most conflicted and rounded character. Here is someone who smiles at the complexity and difficulty of disarming a bomb that could destroy half a city, secretly admiring the bomb maker. His obsession with bomb disposal overshadows every aspect of his life, he can't even bear to talk to his wife on the phone and once home with family, admits that he has one love, one drug as it were, war. The timing of this film comes perfectly as juxtaposition to Tarantino's 'Inglorious Basterds.' Where Tarantino fictionalises war for his story, 'The Hurt Locker,' has the brilliance of a writer with first hand experiences of the gulf war (journalist Mark Boal) and delivers a very 'real' experience. Where explosions may light the sky up in other summer blockbusters, here we are showered in dirt and debris (there are particularly beautiful touches with slow motion observations of the reverberations of explosions) and where other soldiers may talk about going home to their daughter and beautiful wife, we have men who have nothing but war and when they do, it is not enough. War is where they are at home and home is where they are at war.
Patrick Waggett