The Hurt Locker (MA). Running time: 131 minutes. Director: Kathryn Bigelow. Starring: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty
War is tough. You'd be hard pressed to find a war film that didn't try to evoke some of the horrors or stresses of combat. The characters of The Hurt Locker have a more stressful job than most. They comprise an elite US Army bomb squad unit, charged with disarming bombs laid by insurgents in the sandy streets of Baghdad.
For their fearless (or is that reckless?) leader, Staff Sergeant William James (Renner), this stress is a veritable amphetamine, and he's well and truly hooked. The Hurt Locker boxes the intensity of his adrenaline-chasing experiences into a 131-minute study of the psychological impacts of war.
The scene for James' exploits is set during a tense prologue, in which his predecessor in Bravo Company, Staff Sergeant Matt Thompson (Guy Pearce), is killed when a routine operation takes a dire turn. This leaves Thompson's chums and offsiders, Sgt Sanborn (Mackie) and Specialist Eldridge (Gerahhty), decidedly shaken.
James is brought in to replace him, and is immediately seen to be clearly different from his steadfast predecessor. During one of his first operations with Bravo Company, an attempt to disarm a car bomb, James discards his communication earpiece and ignores advice to abort. The mission is successful, but Sanborn's and Eldridge's astonishment at James' recklessness is exacerbated by the recent memory of the reliable Thompson's death, and Sanborn even responds with physical violence.
Violence, and alcohol, later fuel the strained camaraderie of the trio. We see them, between operations, bonding during a binge in the barracks, belting each other in the stomach and laughing drunkenly. It's a macho ritual that suggests they have been physically as well as mentally desensitised by war. We are given more insight into the extent of James' addiction; Sanborn discovers a basketful of bomb parts, souvenirs from successful jobs, under James' bed.
This is an apolitical film. The soldiers are not heroes, but they do have a job to do. We are made to appreciate the psychological demands of military operations in civilian areas. There is a moral obligation to preserve civilian lives, but also an inevitable and necessary concern for personal safety. Most of the civilians pose no threat to the soldiers, but some probably do (a hard lesson learned at the time of Thompson's death).
The film's account of warfare is at times tryingly forensic.