Bullet Review: The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker is the story of a bomb disposal team in Iraq and the tasks they have to face everyday. Read on for the review …

The Hurt Locker is writer/journalist Mark Boals take on the life of a bomb disposal team, written after he was in Iraq covering the war. The film is a non-politcal, non-message film simply about the guys in the unit and their job. This is a good way to approach the film, as unlike many other Iraq war films, we’re not being hit over the head by messages of either we should or we shouldn’t have gone in, depending on the writer and directors political stance. We simply follow the three guys (led by Renners Sgt James) as they go about their job.

Kathryn Bigelow has created a very tense film. The opening 5 or so minutes are amongst some of the most chair handle grabbing tense I’ve seen for a long time. These guys simply do not know if the people on the streets, in the shops, driving past them, on the balconies are going to wave, shoot them or blow them up. This creates a real tense feel throughout the whole film. One scene in particular at the UN embassy is incredibly well done, you simply have no idea what is going to happen as the soliders try to work out if the people observing them are about the trigger the explosives they are trying to defuse.

The film looks fantastic as well, filmed in Jordan, it looks desolate, destroyed and run down. Mangy cats roam the streets, buildings are falling apart, wreaks scatter the road. The explosions are loud and have real punch, the film is certainly very viscereal on the action front.

If the film does suffer, it may be down to a lack of character. We simply follow these guys around and at no point do we really get to know them very much past the surface. It didn’t cause me too many issues, but I have seen people complain about it and maybe repeat viewings will loose something due to it. The acting however is good and Renner surprised me, I thought he was decent in 28 Weeks Later and he carries on the good work here. Good marks also to Anthony Mackie who plays the by the books Lt well too.

Perhaps the film does suffer a bit from lack of focus, specially 2nd half. With no message to get across, we simply are going off the opening words that ‘War is a drug’ as it is to James. He can’t get enough of it and is reckless to the point of dangerous at times to get his fix.

The negatives in the film though are certainly overshadowed by the positives and the immense tension. This is probably the best Iraq based war film out there and one of the better films overall if you’re prepared to take the film for what it is, basically a month in the life of bomb disposal.

RATING 4.5/5