"In Iraq, you're dead"

Rating: 10/10 (11 July 2009)

Early in the film, one soldier says this to another who is just starting on the job of being in a particular unit in Iraq. One might think it a lame line, and it's even mentioned as such right after the character says it. But it is, actually, accurate in a way. The characters, both the soldiers and those who engage in the suicide bombings (whether all willing or totally against in some small cases), are like the living dead, living through the dead that is, every day and every second. It wears down minds and souls, and it sets apart personalities. Some have to stay professionals, others get blown to bits at a second's notice for just not hustling ass or, perhaps, just standing around not on constant alert. Kathryn Bigalow's film is most exceptional at a level of pure suspense, but there's this underlying feeling too, of what this kind of combat does to a person, that isn't underestimated.
Her film is lean and mean. I don't know for certain whether or not it's accurate to all of the details on the streets and in the desert. Some others have already complained about the lack of authenticity (just look at the IMDb negative comments to give some perspective on the inundation of critical praise from the press). While I can figure Bigalow and her writer did their homework, that's not even what makes the film so palpable and worthwhile. It's creating a sense of what it is to be there, the tension that is completely unpredictable even when all appears to be going right. It's essentially about a bomb squad, a unit that goes around checking out and (hopefully) disarming bombs that have been laid out. The hand-held camera and jittery zoom isn't done for ill-used effect (this isn't, for example, Public Enemies again); not a shot in these moments are wasted, and it gives a new urgency to the "ticking time bomb" scenario that actually means something here as opposed to other sources in TV and movies (24 anyone?)
And it's not without some good dosage of characterization as well. True, Bigalow paints with some broad strokes, at least at first; there's the strong-minded leader Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), who pushes down his fear with his professional sniper eye, the weaker link of the group who tries to hold it together but just can't keep going on with it, Eldridge, (Brian Geraghty), and rounding it up is Jeremy Renner as James, the "adrenaline junkie." It would be easy to say James is the antagonist of the group, and I was fully expecting him to be painted as two-dimensional at best. But if anything he's given the most dimension of anyone (compared to him, in fact, Geragthy is given much less to do except to look frightened, not always a bad thing), as we see him break down over little things that turn bigger, like with the 12 year old kid selling DVD's, or his estranged relationship with his ex-wife and little boy. And on top of this, Renner is simply electrifying in the role, going all over the place emotionally but never missing a beat. It's one of those unforgettable characters in recent war movies.
Bigalow also has other tricks up her sleeve casting wise, such as giving "name" actors parts that aren't actually on screen for very long (this isn't quite a spoiler exactly, the three big ones are Morse, Fiennes and Pearce). And as far as person-to-person drama goes, there are some startling moments, such as that drunken fight between James and Sanborn. So with that covered, with the characters in these situations given that sense of danger at any moment anyway (stray bullets can fly through the barracks, of course, as mentioned just in passing), it's the big sequences that steal the show. In particular is a sniper-fire scene, where the bomb unit stops to help a British jeep with a spare-tire fix only to come under sudden fire from miles away. Rarely does one jump and feel such itching tension in one's seat in this scene and, oddly enough, that turns into a long scene where characters have to wait, at the ready at their snipers, sometimes having to do things simply as getting enough fluids into the system. One is reminded of the sniper sequence in Full Metal Jacket and, as high praise indeed, this is just as good if not given fuller dimension with its equal intensity and patience.
The Hurt Locker isn't always an easy film to take, and it shouldn't be. It's an in-the-zone motion picture where you never are quite sure about the outcome, except that in the end everyone will be more or less f***ed for life even when they get out. They might not even know it, but there may be that moment in a cereal isle, staring down at endless boxes and brands, and the derangement of the senses comes through thick as smoke. Powerful stuff, and one of the director's best in a career of lean/mean (smart) action pictures.