The Hurt Locker

Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker is probably the best narrative film that uses the conflict in Iraq as its subject matter. At first blush I thought it might be because it sticks to the conventions of the platoon war picture, and is less political than films like Stop-Loss and In the Valley of Elah. But after a few hours have passed I realize that it is a political film, but in a much more subtle way.

The set-up is simple: we are embedded with the U.S. Army, specifically an E.O.D. (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) unit. It's a small group, consisting of three soldiers, who are called upon to disarm unexploded devices. After one of their number is killed, a new guy arrives to assume the role of team leader, and things get a little unsettled.

That's because the new guy is Will James, played by Jeremy Renner, and he marches to the beat of distinctively different drummer. He marches right into danger with a casual attitude that drives his colleague, Anthony Mackie, crazy. The third man, Brian Geraghty, fancies himself a walking dead man, and deals with his overwhelming sense of dread with visits by a psychiatrist. It soon becomes apparent that Renner thrives on danger (the opening epigram is from war correspondent Chris Hedges: "War is a drug)." For Renner it certainly is a drug, helping him forget about the troubles he's having with his wife.

Written by Mark Boal, a journalist who spent time embedded with an E.O.D., the film unfolds episodically, as the trio deal with increasingly dangerous situations. Renner disarms a bomb in a car, taking far longer than Mackie would like. They encounter a group of British soldiers, and get pinned down by some enemy snipers. Renner sneaks out of the base to investigate the death of a local boy he befriended, and then Renner tries to help an unfortunate man who has been pressed into service as a suicide bomber. All of these scenes drip with authenticity, and are pumped with maximum suspense by Bigelow and editors Chris Innis and Bob Murawski. The cinematography by Barry Ackroyd is an example of how jittery hand-held photography serves the story, rather than distracts from it (as in Public Enemies). If it recalls a video game, I think that's intentional, and we see that Geraghty unwinds by playing a first-person shooter game during his off-time.

The acting is first-rate. Renner has a young Russell Crowe quality, and though he's a far more flamboyant character than Mackie, both should be in the conversation come Oscar time. There are a number of more notable actors who pop up in brief roles: Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes, David Morse and Evangeline Lilly.

In some respects this story could about soldiers in any war, but in other respects it could only have taken place in Iraq. We are told at the outset that we are in 2004 Baghdad, so that may summon the images of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld in some. But I think the longer view has less to do with the particulars of how the U.S. ended up in Iraq than in what the war does to those who fight it. One of the strongest sequences in the film is a cut from Renner driving a HUMVEE down a dusty Baghdad street, with children running alongside (some of them throwing rocks) to him pushing a cart down the aisle of a grocery store back home. He has gone from a life of almost constant danger to a life where his greatest challenge is deciding which cereal to buy (he's faced with a seemingly endless choice). The greatest legacy of this war for Americans just may be the scars it leaves on the young men and women who leave a part of themselves in the desert.