To date, Hollywood’s take on Iraq has gone down as well with audiences as the conflict itself. Nothing has worked, not the star-laden approach of political drama Lions for Lambs, or portraits of loss such as Grace is Gone.
The Hurt Locker (slang for a bad place) finds Bigelow going back to war movie basics, homing in on one unit, a Baghdad bomb disposal squad, and three individuals. Anthony Mackie plays Sergeant Sanborn, the tour weary warrior who just wants to get home safe. Brian Geraghty is the youngster living on his nerves. At the centre of the trio is maverick staff sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner). In this unit, as in many other units in Iraq and Afghanistan, death can be just one wrong move away.
Bigelow, her screenplay writer Mark Boal, and the young cast prove to be quite the unit in themselves. Boal, who was embedded in Iraq with a bomb unit, stamps authenticity on the enterprise. The cast supply terrific performances (Renner is superb), while Bigelow’s white-knuckle scenes are the best she’s ever done.
Though exhilarating viewing, The Hurt Locker ends with the niggling sense that something is missing. The only big idea the film advances is that to some men, soldiers such as James, war is a drug. But the dealers of this particular product are politicians. It should surely be the responsibility of any war movie, particularly one dealing with so controversial a conflict, to ensure they catch more of the flak than they do here. A must-see, even so.
The Hurt Locker (15)
****
Dir: Kathryn Bigelow
With: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie
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