Has weaknesses in the story/characters but is mostly tense, urgent and engaging in its depiction of the job

Rating: Null/10 (6 September 2009)

The Hurt Locker caught my eye while I was in America earlier this year as the worst review I saw gave it 4 stars and many seemed happy to give it the full 5. I never got round to seeing it then but when it came to the UK (to similar reception) I made a point of getting to see it in the cinema. Seeing it leaves with the conclusion that going off star ratings is no way to go about summarising a film because in some ways this is a quite remarkable and gripping film but then, in other aspects, it is surprisingly underdeveloped and wanting. The good news is though that the strengths it has outweigh the weaknesses and, while they remain in your head as an issue, they are not what you take away from the film.
What you do go away with is a memory of very tense and engaging film that puts the viewer right into the action. Or rather, lack of action because the film is at its best when nothing happens because it manages to capture the sense of threat and urgency associated with having civilians who may be insurgents watching while the defusing is going on and time is of the essence. Quite how realistic it is when it comes to the specifics I guess is questionable (the forums are full of people discussing the minutiae of this scene and that scene) but in terms of translating the feelings to the viewer it is certainly very good. There is a tension to all these scenes combined with an excitement to be working against someone for the "win" – that someone being the bomb manufacturer and the "contest" being to see which person can achieve their goal for the bomb – defuse or go off. On top of this we also get the suddenness and pointlessness of death in this situation, where the enemy can come from nowhere and is hard to identify, leading to this constant edge that sets the film off nicely.
Contrary to some opinion, the film doesn't really have much to say about Iraq and indeed the same film could be set in any modern conflict zone because of the relative unimportance of specifics. This is a good thing because it puts the focus on the men doing the job and, as suggested by the title card quote, what drives them to do it. Unfortunately it is in this area where the film doesn't quite work as well as it does when dishing out scenes of the job and the dangers inherent in it. The characters are characters and don't manage to become people for any length of time so, despite the more worthy goal of the film, we never really get into their heads beyond the obvious. Similarly the film doesn't have a great "story". This doesn't matter for the vast majority of the film because the tension of the job is everything, but later in the day we have several sections that don't work particularly well because they seem to be heading off from "the job" as if in search of a character-development point or a direction to provide narrative flow beyond the episodic.
I refer to the stuff involving Beckham and also the "beyond the blast perimeter" stuff towards the end. Both of these are OK but both seem to occur without a lot of justification and don't seem to add a lot to the story or character. Bigelow direction matches the weaknesses in the material because she is at her best when dealing with the action on the ground. The cast manage more consistency in their characters to the point where I wanted them to have more opportunity to develop their characters because it was clear they could. I've seen Mackie many times before but this is the first time I remember being impressed by him as he is very good and has the "most real" scene in the film. Renner plays the driven-part bang on but maybe doesn't have much to do to show his addiction, regrets etc – the scenes that do are generally pretty obvious. He is also strong though while Geraghty is a good third player albeit the film doesn't give him more than a few minutes to convey the feelings that are big part of his character. The supporting cast are solid as well as all of them play into the intensity of the film rather than the complexity (or lack of).
Hurt Locker is not the brilliant film that many claim it is – it has too many gaps/weaknesses in the narrative and material to really stand out as that, but these are covered by the qualities that you will remember the film for. It is the ground where the film is strongest, where the threat (or perceived threat) is everywhere, where death is sudden and without any "death scene" fanfare or trimmings and most of the movie is spent hoping there won't be action rather than just waiting for the next being CGI action sequence. The tension and excitement of these scenes are what the film is about and they do make the film worth seeing to the point where they carry it across the weaker aspects that come in the second half.