MSRP: $26.99
RATED: R
RUNNING TIME: 131 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
•Audio Commentary with Director Kathryn Bigelow and Writer Mark Boal
•The Hurt Locker: Behind the Scenes
•Image Gallery
The Pitch
Go to work at one of the most stressful, dangerous jobs on the planet, and keep your feelings (and your books for fifth period) in The Hurt Locker.
The Humans
Written by Mark Boal
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
Starring: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Guy Pearce, David Morse, Ralph Fiennes, Evangeline Lilly
The Nutshell
A suspenseful and action packed film that serves up a terribly mixed message about personal responsibility.
The Lowdown
The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal’s film about a bomb dismantling unit in Iraq is an odd duck. What separates it (positively or negatively) from most films about the modern American involvement in the Middle East is that the idea of politics never enters the scene. It is purely an action film disguised as a suspenseful war film. It doesn’t have satire, it doesn’t have a sense of loss, it is a film that follows men, (particularly one man – SSgt. William James, well-played by Jeremy Renner) who are doing a job. This job just happens to be one of the most high risk and life threatening occupations possible.
James doesn’t enter the scene until we have already met Sgt. JT Sanborn and Spc. Owen Eldridge, who along with their team leader (a cameo from Guy Pearce) play by the rules. They always send in the robot first to assess the possible explosive device. If they need to, the leader will suit up and go in to dismantle the bomb himself. It is precisely this situation that sets forth the template for every “adventure” thereafter and leads to James joining Sanborn and Eldridge. Every member of a bomb squad has to be a bit crazy, but James sets a new standard. He literally lives for this stuff, to a fault. He discards the use of the robot, and even the protective suit at times. He makes decisions that endanger his team, at least in the eyes of Sanborn, with whom he butts heads.
Unfortunately, while James is the gung-ho Die Hard “doesn’t play by the rules” action character that we all idolize in movies, placing him into “reality” essentially makes him the villain of the film in this reviewer’s humble opinion. It forces a bizarro twist on the archetype, where he is praised by his superiors in the Army (David Morse, the second of several cameos from known actors including Ralph Fiennes and Lost’s Evangeline Lilly) while his team contemplates simply getting rid of him because of his recklessness. He deserves the “f*** you” he receives as last words from one of his team members. The worst offense of all seems to be that he is a completely selfish jerk to his family. A scene late in the film of his restless civilian life could have been a flashback to before he joined in for his first tour of duty in Iraq. Instead, it rather bluntly is not.
Sanborn may hate James, but Eldridge isn’t quite sure what to make of any of him. Eldridge is the one main character who is simply a good person and he is treated like crap as a result. He puts trust in his superiors, questions baseless violence, and tries to be the best damn soldier he can be. His reward is that he is portrayed as the one person in the film who is seeking psychological counseling. This isn’t just the film reflecting James’ view of him, as someone who has to be pushed to the edge in order to make him a better person, but essentially the film is attacking anyone who feels like Eldridge feels. The resolution for his character is fairly unsympathetic and should be a moment to root for the hero “beating” the villain but instead it plays more like a “good riddance to someone who wasn’t cut out for Iraq in the first place”.
The film is great for reflecting James’ cocksure attitude but at fault for glorifying it. It is sending a bad message about adrenaline rushes. The fact that James will never quit on an IED challenge makes him praiseworthy, but when you realize it is all for him and not the safety of those around him you can’t help but feel saddened. As long as the bomb gets dismantled, does the reason matter? Well when James does fail, is he beating himself up about it because a person died or because he failed himself? James does have his moments of selflessness, though they are few and far between. He cares deeply for a local “base rat” called Beckham and is willing to endanger himself to protect him. Unfortunately, the fact he would go to such lengths for this foreign boy while hanging up on a long distance call with his own wife reflects his completely backwards sense of honor.
As much as this reviewer would like to be able to sit back and just go along for the ride with a well made action-drama about bomb dismantlers who face a new exciting challenge each episode, there has to be more going on beneath the surface. To ignore that is to ignore the idea that film is an art form capable of brilliant levels of subtext. The film makes a case that it is worth having someone abandon every other aspect of life for the one thing they are good at if it helps save lives, but does he have to be such a jerk? Whether it is being accurate to the type of person one has to be to exist under this kind of pressure on a day to day basis or not, there is a terribly mixed message about responsibilities for one’s self and those that care about them.
The Package
The film is presented in its original Anamorphic Widescreen aspect ratio of 1:78:1 and features 5.1 Dolby Digital, 2.0 DolbySurround and Spanish 5.1 Dolby Digital audio tracks. There is also an audio commentary featuring director Bigelow and writer Boal where they discuss the origins of the project and how they made it independently from a Hollywood studio. It is fairly dry but has some interesting facts for those interested. A standard EPK called “The Hurt Locker: Behind the Scenes” runs 12 minutes and has lots of patting each other on the back for making such a challenging film. Also featured is an Image Gallery, which is actually more than it seems. The gallery of images from production plays on its own and runs 21 minutes, and can be played together with an optional audio track of Bigelow and Boal doing a Q&A for the film after a screening. Much the same information is covered as with the feature commentary, but it was a nice surprise that isn’t mentioned anywhere on the packaging.
16 comments
I think your analysis of the film is off-base. In my flawed opinion, you dinged the movie for doing what it was trying to do. I don't think this is a film for heroes or villains but people who must engage in real(ly dangerous) situations and how it affects them. I don't think you're supposed to sit back and go for the ride, I think you're supposed to be excited by the action elements as a trick to draw you into William's personal Hurt Locker. Anyway, this is a very well written review. Devin gets all the attention, but there are a lot of good writers on this site.
Well I watched this film in close proximity to The Messenger, which I found to be a much more engaging (and realistic) view of the effect that war has on a person.
Thanks for the kind words though. This site has a bunch of great writers and until I move up in the world you can follow my non-chud reviews at hxxp://SMSudin.Blogspot.com
One of the aspects of the film that no reviewer has touched upon (one's that
I've read, anyway) is that of the drug element. This film starts with the statement "war is a drug", and our main character is basically as addicted as any of us can be addicted to cocaine. He sacrifices everything and everyone to get his "high" – going so far as to tell his son he loves the "drug" more than anything else. We witness the drive for the high and the following crash (cold shower, frantic call home, fighting). We don't see his addiction get the better of him, but like most addicts, we can assume it will eventually kill him.
Yeah, what Captain EO said. Kathryn Bigelow is American mainstream's cinema's master subtext technician. There's a lot more going on in the Hurt Locker than, perhaps, you caught on your viewing(s). Adrenaline is a drug, as 1st Timer said, and War is the ultimate adrenaline rush (see the brilliant satirical comic Army @ Love for more). Bigelow doesn't overtly comment on the questionable reasoning behind the Iraq War, but knows that this is lingering in the background. Acknowledging this, the film becomes not about whether ruining one man's life is worth saving hundreds of soldiers, but whether our country should engage in unnecessary conflicts that distort our collective soul–and mutilate our soldiers, physically and mentally–for lofty ideals, power, or oil. If you want someone to club you over the head with moral quandaries and too-easy solutions, go watch the Valley of Elah, or somesuch other piece of mainstream tripe.
I agree with Captain Eo. I don't think that the narrative is meant to be an endorsement of James' behavior, nor does it condemn the approach of Eldridge (or Guy Pearce's character for that matter). I think the film wisely avoids taking sides, and I think that's part of what makes it work so brilliantly as a white-knuckle action/suspense picture. I don't think simply flipping the consequences around would help the story, in fact it would render it a bit formulaic. If James is punished for his reckless behavior and the careful characters are let off the hook, then it would be like the other 99% of movies about addiction.
One of this film's strengths is its disinterest in getting into messages about this specific war. It doesn't try and tell you what you should figure out on your own. To me, the film was not really subtle at all and wasn't about making broad implications. It's about this character's relationship with war, and then to a lesser extent about the other characters' relationship to war in contrast. I don't even think the character is supposed to represent a lot of military people, but maybe he does. I don't think the film tries making a case for anybody. I'm OK with that. It was a nice little film subverting ideas that films on topical subjects have to be weighed down with messages instead of just rocking.
One of this film's weakness is that is boring, unoriginal, not vert supsenseful, and contains the worst performance ever by Ralph Fiennes.
This film does more to highlight whats wrong with war than 95% of most anti-war films. It does it not by putting up some bullshit hollywood college pinko politically correct crap in our faces (think about that James Cameron). It does it by simply laying us on the ground with these guys and allowing us to grow and experience this very real situation/event with them. Its a very well crafted film and of the movies i've seen this year is easily the best (favorite was D9).
I think you missed a lot of what this film offers by focusing on the fact that it works in a lot of gray area, and wishing it were more black-and-white. James is a complicated character of course, but the "villain" of the movie is war; what man does to his fellow man. If James is a jerk, as you seem to think, it is largely because of the horrible situation he's in, and it's how he personally survives. Maybe that makes him selfish, but from his point of view, he has a job to do, and he does it.
A movie doesn't need to be a morality tale about responsibility. This film seems to seek to honestly examine the extraordinary lives some of us lead, and the price they pay for it. Not always being the "good guy", and not always doing what you consider the "right thing" or things you may understand (the issues you mention between James and the boy, versus James and his wife) serves as a potent metaphor for America's presence in Iraq.
Best Film of 2009.
Renner was great. His character's addiction to the drug of "war" WAS the political allegory. Putting himself, his comrades and, (in the end) his family in peril for no logical reason. A weird macho/masochistic hybrid. Genius on Bigelow's part. At least Cameron acknowledged at the Globes she was "Best Director".
I saw this in the same day after "The Road", which ended with a Guy Pearce cameo. Then, in this, he got blowed up…real good. Does that guy not star in movies anymore?
#3, I got the same message from the film. It's not a war film but a substance abuse analogy.
http://psychedelickimchi.blogspot.com/2009/12/hurt-locker-review.html
I think this review is pretty spot on. I have to admit thought, that outside of Guy Pierce's cameo, which I thought worked pretty well, because I was hoping he would be in more of the movie, i thought the dirth of cameos was a bit distracting and was the complete opposite of what the film needed. Regardless, I still thought it was a great film, but I don't think the viewer should be thinking, "so now where's Keanu?", they should be focusing on the story.
@ RCA: Just FYI, a "dearth" of something is a lack of something, or sacrcity of it. Cameos were not exactly scarce in The Hurt Locker. And for what it's worth, I think this review basically misses the entire point of the movie.
I was making a joke about how many there were, guess it failed, but thanks for giving me the definition, then saying the review missed the mark but not elaborating on what exactly was missed….
great movie, tense…war is so stupid…what was the last thing Renner said to his son…I could not understand what he said
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