The Hurt Locker…
I can not think of movie in recent memory that simultaneously glamorizes and repulses the viewer about its subject matter more than The Hurt Locker. But The Hurt Locker does just that with it's portrayal of US Army Bomb Technician Staff Sergeant William James. At first glance it's all the glitz and glam, James is introduced with the bravado and confidence that one would expect. A rebel at heart he does his job in a take no prisoners fashion. But very quickly you see how this is the worst job in the world in some of the most tense scenes to be portrayed on screen this year.
There are perhaps a half dozen devices that get disarmed throughout the course of the film, each of them more fucked up than the one before it. And while each bomb itself is pucker your butt hole insane, very early on the filmmakers show that most of the time it's not the bomb itself that is most dangerous but the spectators watching. Any number of them could be involved in the bomb plot, perhaps with a remote trigger, just waiting for US Army personnel to get within the kill range. The only thing protecting is your crew scouting each of them determining whether they are threat or not, with just seconds to make a life altering decision. And that's when you truly realize how fucked their situation is and the tension mounts for the characters and the viewer. Top Gun made people want to be Navy Pilots. No one will want to be a bomb tech after watching the Hurt Locker.
The film could almost be considered a docudrama in that there isn’t a whole lot of plot going on. It’s more of a chronicling of the days and lives of a particular bomb unit, exploring who are these men and what are their motivations. Through this we see that James is a little unhinged, little reckless, and little devoid of human emotion; which is fitting considering every time he goes out to disarm a bomb he rolls the dice on whether he lives or dies. The film sets up the building blocks for some pretty interesting questions. Is he the perfect makeup to be a bomb tech, or did he evolve to become that to fit the job? How was he before the war? Will he ever adjust to civilian life afterwards? But they never truly get answered, leaving some to the viewer and the others to frustration.
Halfway through the film tries to setup a somewhat conventional plot line involving a bomber who uses a child’s body as the device and James becoming obsessed with finding him. It’s as this point that the film kind of meanders out for me. The plot line does not go anywhere gratifying and leaves us with less of the more compelling characterizations. Even so, James and his crew are extremely likable and you root for their success throughout.
Ultimately this is the best film on the Iraq war, and one of the best war films in the past decade, falling just short of perfect. One of the few must see films of the year.
January 5th, 2010 - 03:49
Not in it an essence.