Director: Kathryn Bigelow (Mission Zero, K-19: The Widowmaker)

Screenwriters: Mark Boal (In the Valley of Elah)

Cast: Jeremy Renner (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, 28 Weeks Later), Anthony Mackie (Eagle Eye, We Are Marshall), Brian Geraghty (I Know Who Killed Me, We Are Marshall)

Length: 2h 11m

Synopsis: Staff Sergeant William James is a cavalier bomb specialist who seems to live for defusing bombs in Afghanistan.  During his thirty-nine-day tour in Bravo Company, he clashes with his fellow soldiers, but also grows closer to them as time goes on.

Analysis: To call director Kathryn Bigelow’s film The Hurt Locker another Iraq War movie would be to diminish its uniqueness.  First of all, it is set in Afghanistan in 2004.  However, it is also different from the many and not so successful Iraq War films released during the past few years in another sense: it does not make its point by speaking in large sweeping terms, but gently shows the effects of the war on the psyche of American youth.

The Hurt Locker, rather than being an obvious indictment against America’s actions like Michael Moore’s 2007 film Fahrenheit 9/11, manages to do what 2008’s Stop-Loss was unable to do by setting up a subtle and powerful discussion of the effects of war on the psyche of American youth.  Bigelow has made a film not based on emotion, but upon suspense.

From the first scene in which a bomb expert, played by Guy Pierce, puts on his bulky safety suit and walks painstakingly toward the bomb while every second it threatens to explode, there is a palpable tension to the film that never lifts.  Bigelow carefully crafts the tension through tight framing and long takes that leave the tension unbroken for seemingly interminable amounts of time.  The first scene in which James defuses one bomb only to find there are multiple bombs tied together is one of the best of the film and perhaps one of the scenes that reveals the most about Renner’s character.

James is like the very bombs he defuses, liable to explode at anytime.  His unit, made up of a solid supporting cast that includes strong performances from Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty, never knows when he might break protocol and put all of their lives in danger.  From the first scene when he walks straight toward the potential bomb instead of sending a robot to examine it first, James shows a complete disregard for the fact he could die at any moment.  However, as the film progresses, it becomes clear that James does not deny the danger that surrounds him in order to cope with it, but relishes it.

James is not like the other men in his company who fear the threat of death and count the days until they can return home to their families.  He can only feel alive when he is in danger of dying.  He flourishes only in war, and through the character screenwriter Mark Boal makes a subtle and stunning criticism.  James is a man who has been destroyed by the turmoil of war, but not in the same way as the other men in his company.  While they have been shaken by its horrors, James has become dependent upon them and cannot reintegrate himself into normal life.  He is destroyed in a completely different way, but he is destroyed nonetheless.  James is testament to the idea that war destroys everyone, but the matter is how it destroys.  There is no endpoint to war, but destroying the soldiers’ psyche.  It is a subtle point, no less damning than overt criticism would be.  It demands that Americans confront the cost of the war.

Rating: 8.5

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