an extraordinary cinematic achievement

Rating: 9/10 (16 January 2010)

Unlike many of the earlier films on the same subject, "The Hurt Locker" starts off by accepting the Iraq war as a given. That is to say it doesn't try to place the issue in any kind of larger sociopolitical context or to explain why the Americans felt compelled to wage the conflict in the first place. Instead, it focuses on the everyday activities of a three-man Explosive Ordinance Disposal Unit (EOD) whose job it is to dismantle, as safely as possible, the literally hundreds of still-to-be-detonated IEDs strewn across the streets of Baghdad. The leader of the trio has just been killed in the line of duty and has now been replaced by a newcomer whose seeming recklessness and flagrant disregard for protocol doesn't sit well with the other members of the team, who feel that their own survival is being needlessly threatened by his carelessness - especially now that there is less than a month-and-a-half left to go before the team is to be taken out of rotation.
Before getting to the more "literary" aspects of the film, let's just say right up front that, on a strictly "cinematic" level, "The Hurt Locker" is an astonishing accomplishment in every sense of the term. Director Kathryn Bigelow employs hand-held cameras, razor-sharp editing and an abundance of point-of-view shots to create a film of palpable, nail-biting immediacy that plunges the audience directly into the heart of the action. Yet, she punctuates that with the nonstop sound of jet fighters roaring overhead just to remind us that, hard as it may be to imagine at times, there is an even larger war taking place somewhere beyond the reaches of the one we see here. This story is clearly just one of many.
On a thematic level, the movie explores the various ways these three men cope with the inconceivable stress of life on the battlefield. Staff Sergeant William James finds an adrenaline-pumping thrill in living life on the edge, of always being just a hair-trigger away from possible death. Specialist Owen Eldridge, on the other hand, has become so obsessed with death that he fears he will freeze up right at the moment when he needs to be most clear-headed, steady-handed and steely-nerved. And Sergeant T.J. Sanborn occupies a kind of pragmatic, middle ground between the two, willing to put his life on the line to get the job done but not to willy-nilly just tempt fate for the sake of doing so. Yet, thanks to Marc Boal's perceptive screenplay, each man emerges as a complex individual in his own right, never a "type." James, for instance, may be wild and reckless, but he also has a caring, compassionate side that he reveals in off-handed and unexpected moments of tenderness towards others and loyalty towards his men. And there's a stunning coda that forces us, perhaps reluctantly, to see James in an entirely different light from how we've been viewing him up to that point.
Relative unknowns Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty are heartbreakingly effective as James, Sanborn and Eldridge, respectively, managing to create fully realized, empathetic characters amidst all the pyrotechnic war-movie effects. And even a few familiar faces - Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes and Evangeline Lilly from "Lost" - show up at various points in the film (in a way, this use of "stars" - though obviously done for purposes of procuring financing - could easily have compromised the integrity of the picture, but the unusual way Bigelow uses them helps to mitigate that effect).
The real key to "The Hurt Locker"'s success is that it never sacrifices intimacy for the grander picture, never allows the war movie setting to supercede the characters and their stories. It is first, last and always a movie about ordinary people caught up in extraordinary circumstances. It's also unforgettable.