Did they want to get at anything with this film?

Rating: 3/10 (3 January 2010)

SSgt. William James, leader of a bomb squad team in Iraq, is I guess whom we should consider the main character of this film. Where we follow him and his two other team members through a series of disarmament situations happening in a single month before their regular rotation. And where we are getting acquainted with the whole variety of bombs I guess you're likely to get there: roadside bombs, a car bomb at UN headquarters, a strapped on body bomb and so on.
So far so good. Regarding that team's work, the film in fact succeeds in giving an idea of how difficult it is to operate in an urban environment where you can't easily distinguish friend from foe. The dangers that come with it and the tension that creates. But that's already all the good I'd have to say about this movie.
As for example, and especially so in view of procedures, this film makes the US Army look like a bunch of complete morons. We see the bomb squad cruising not only Baghdad streets but actually the desert in a humvee totally alone, without further escort. We see them taking on all kinds of tasks they obviously aren't meant to do, like securing a building, hunting bomb planters through the Baghdad night, even splitting on the way making each of them walk alone, sniping back at snipers in the desert and so forth. As infantry practically doesn't exist in this film, because why else did our three bomb squad members have to do all those things in the first place? And I guess we're seeing a lot more nonsense I either forgot about or maybe didn't even notice because I'm just applying common reason. All that would be quite laughable really, if they didn't try to make it look real with their docufiction style filming.
Leaves us with the main character, for whom we are apparently supposed to root. Problem is that he seems to break about any rule in the book, not only exposing himself to substantially increased risk but his team members as well. Where the reason for this behavior would be that "war is a potent drug", as we learn through the title sequence, and his participation in it the single thing he still loves in his life, as he'll later explain to his about one year old kid. Yeah, you heard right.
I haven't seen many Bigelow films, but this lead character in fact reminds me of one I did see, namely Point Break and that Bodhi character therein. Who very much just amounts to a suicidal cowboy, and that's what we're getting here just the same. This movie apparently doesn't really try to see that attitude as a problem though, where in reality it'd of course be a major one especially given his responsibilities towards others. On the contrary, his approach always works out, and in the end it's his more sane and reasonable fellows who come across like ... well, let's just call it what it looks like, weak losers. So if this was the message, of which I can't really be sure given how non articulate the characters otherwise are, I'd say it's the wrong one.
Bottom line being that this film doesn't make the slightest bit of sense to me. Addiction to war? OK, but then why present us the addicted as a kind of a high-flyer? I mean if anybody, he'd likely be the first to die. Well maybe, just maybe after his team members who were entrusted to him.
Well, you guys figure that out if you can. Because I can't.