Review of The Hurt Locker (2008) by John S — 14 Mar 2013

There is a scene in "The Hurt Locker", perhaps twenty or so minutes long, where Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), James (Jeremy Renner), Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) and the rest of the Bravo squad are engaged in a sniper battle with some Iraqi refugees.

It's the best, most action-packed, and most epic battle I've ever seen in a movie, and none of the characters move more than three feet.

This, we realize, must be how war is actually like. No running, and jumping and shooting and blowing or any of that. These slow, precise, suspenseful battles. How did they manage to get it so realistic?

Well, it certainly helped director Kathryn Bigelow that her screenwriter, Mark Boal, was a war veteran. He knows firsthand what the deal is in Iraq and how to put it into a movie.

The Hurt Locker's co-stars are Ralph Fiennes (we know him from his role as Voldemort), Guy Pearce (from L.A. Confidential) and Evangiline Lilly as James's wife.

My favorite parts of the movie were when James's rebellious attitude clashed with Sanborn's by-the-book attitude, and while that seems like a cliche, it's presented in a different way in this movie.

In one such scene, the team is about to blow up a building when James realizes he forgot his gloves at the bombing site. He grabs a truck and drives down to get them. As he's dancing around next to the bombs with the gloves in his hands, screaming, "I found them!", Sanborn's hand tightens around the detonator button. He is pushed to his limit.

Bottom Line: The whole cast and crew actually flew to and shot the movie in Iraq, on location, and that couples with the experienced screenwriter make it easy to see how The Hurt Locker won the award for best picture.