Barely misses perfection

Rating: 9/10 (22 July 2009)

This movie gives you exactly what you want. Several episodes of high intensity life-or-death situations involving the military equivalent of a "bomb squad" in Iraq. The team is made of 3 men. One who wears a protective suit and deactivates bombs, another who is in communication with him and supervises the area, and a third who is told by the second what to do- which usually means also to be on the lookout for bad guys.
In the intro our bomb deactivator dies when a bad guy detonates a bomb. He is replaced by James, played perfectly by Jeremy Renner. This is your typical American movie hero. The cowboy-type who doesn't care about orders, protocols, or the safety of anyone else. He just goes into the action recklessly and takes care of business without much fanfare. He's good at what he does but he is irresponsible- much to the chagrin of Sanborn (team member #2) who is to ensure the safety of the team. That leads to a confrontation between the two. Meanwhile our third guy is traumatized by the death at the beginning and regularly sees a psychologist.
We get various scenes of bomb deactivation that are perfectly shot and conceived. This is very exciting stuff. In between these we get scenes of the boys being boys, drinking, messing around with each other. At some point while driving through the desert they stop to help some unknown foreigners change a tire when they are suddenly shot upon by snipers. This leads our team to play snipers as well. This scene seems somewhat out of place but is fun nonetheless.
The recklessness of James reaches a peak when he leads the team to search for whoever was behind a suicide bombing of a tanker. They run off into a town at night and without backup. In this process one of our guys gets injured.
This movie tries to balance realism with elements that are just not believable. James gets away with things that one can't possibly imagine wouldn't have any serious consequences. At the same time, the settings, the situations, the way it's filmed, everything has a very realistic sense to it- as if you were a witness to these events. The movie looks great: bright, crisp, and colorful. It sounds good, and the language too is very realistic, being reminiscent of a Michael Mann movie, where you are thrown in the midst of a group of specialists who have their own lingo and don't explain themselves to the audience.
But it's also this episodic character of the movie that makes it somewhat unsatisfying. A thread of continuity is missing. An arc of development isn't really there. This is a very minor flaw, but it's there. Fortunately, the movie doesn't fall into the trap of trying to give these people full lives in a cheesy Hollywood way: there are no love interests, no romantic conquests, no extended scenes of what the women back home are up to, which is done to sickening death in shows like The Unit. There is just enough minimal background about these guys. There is also barely any larger context of war, or of other military units. The focus is very narrow on the three guys. Also missing, and this is a weakness, are villains. There are 2 short appearances of bad guys here, but there are just that- appearances that last a couple of seconds. Nothing more is said, we don't know if they are caught or what happens. I would attribute this to the filmmakers intent on being realistic. Our team is deployed to a situation, resolves it, and leaves. That's their job, that's it, no questions asked.
The ending of the movie, however, is perfect. James completes his rotation and goes back home to his wife and son. But can someone who has been dancing on the very edge of the abyss find himself in a world that is filled with choices and mind-boggling variety? A world where things aren't as simple as 'cut this wire and you live or cut the wrong wire and you die'? A world that at the same time completely lacks the urgency and seriousness of war? I won't reveal the final scene but it is probably exactly what would happen with a man like James.