Review of The Hurt Locker (2008) by Jackson P — 04 Jul 2016

A very specific selection from the quote that opens the film, taken from Chris Hedge's "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning", sums up the next 133 minutes of Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker in just four words: "war is a drug." It's a sentiment that mirrors the mindset of Jeremy Renner's Staff Sergeant William James, who is fearlessly calm in coordinating his EOD squad. Too calm, perhaps, to the point where his actions continuously risk his own life, and the lives of his fellow squad members, including Anthony Mackie's by-the-book Staff Sergeant JT Sanborn and Brian Geraghty's emotionally naive Owen Eldridge. It's a war film, but at its core, Mark Boal's screenplay is a character study of how war affects everyone: as their tour of duty winds down, these three soldiers and their worldviews are changed quite drastically as tensions continuously rise. The film lacks a single, overarching plot, which occasionally hurts the film's pacing, but allows for plenty of character moments between Renner, Mackie, and Geraghty, all of whom give strong performances.

Kathryn Bigelow directs the film with a sense of raw and gritty viscerality, especially when the story necessitates intense action sequences. Bigelow understands how the war works: there's no huge shootouts with running-and-gunning and constant explosions from entire militaries here. Between the handheld camerawork and the general lack of a noticeable musical score, the EOD bomb disposal scenes are filmed in a way that feels like a guitar string is being wound too tight, and could snap at any minute. They're slow paced, but deliberately, and effectively so. It's as if we're stuck down in the sandy streets of Baghdad with these soldiers, and there's no telling who's going to come out of each mission in one piece.

This Best Picture and Best Director winning film (Bigelow is the first, and currently the only, female to win both of these awards) is simultaneously a phenomenal war film, with perhaps the strongest onscreen portrayal of the Iraq War to date, and a fascinating character study of the effects of said war. The Hurt Locker is a must-see.