No Climatic Scenes, No Big Plots, But Compelling Viewing

Rating: 10/10 (25 April 2010)

There's no story, no heroic plot to Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker. There's no search for prisoners, no tracking of a villain, no hostages to rescue, no hill to liberate, or town to capture, or even a search for looted gold. There's not even an overarching allegory of life or war built into the theme of the movie. Despite this lack of war movie plots The Hurt Locker is still compelling with the only goal of the characters, is to stay alive.
The Hurt Locker follows the lives of a team of EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) unit members, Sergeant First Class Will James (Jeremy Renner), Sergeant JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), and Specialist Eldridge (Brian Gerahty) as they finish the last five weeks of their deployment in Iraq. Their job in Iraq is to defuse IED's (Improvised Explosive Devices) and after their first Sergeant (Guy Pearce) is killed Staff Sergeant William James is assigned to the unit. Sanborn and Eldridge discover that James takes more risks in the field than their previous Sergeant and is addicted to the adrenaline surge of war which is putting them at risk. They find themselves in the position of finding out if they can live (literally) with James' approach to the job.
Kathryn Bigelow's direction isn't heavy handed and neither does she use a heavy hand in imparting themes or other usual theatrical devices. The Hurt Locker is a very naturalistic representation of the Iraq war zone. While it touches on aspects of war that other movies have, such as the surreal aspect of war that Apocalypse Now illustrates or the dual nature of war that's found in Platoon, she lets them exist as a natural part of the world the characters find themselves in. This low key, naturalistic approach is also evident in the actor's portrayal of their characters. There's no big emotional blow ups between them, no huge revelations of a characters' back stories to pull on your heartstrings. The film highlights just what occurs naturally from the job they're there to do. The movie also doesn't take a political stance on the war. It's neither anti-war nor pro-war. It puts the viewer in the situation with the characters and you're free to feel or have whatever reaction the events stimulate in you. Bigelow even sparingly uses a soundtrack. It's more of a tense buzzing that keeps us feeling a little uneasy, as must soldiers in the field feel.
The Hurt Locker was written by Mark Boal who had been an embedded reporter with an OED unit in Iraq in 2004. While the story is fictionalized, many of the events shown were based on actual events Boal either witnessed or heard about from soldiers in the field.
Bonus Features: The Hurt Locker DVD has a small bonus feature section that includes an audio commentary that I found a bit lackluster, but I thought was more than compensated for with an image gallery section that includes a Q and A session from the Institute of Contemporary Art in London. And there is a behind the scenes documentary that I found myself wishing there was more of.