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 In cinemas Thursday [MA15+]
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Runtime: 131mins.
The most recent generation of war films has sucked. Somewhere between screaming faces with indistinguishable haircuts and the earnest ideological mouths dressed in drab Washington suits, filmmakers forgot the purpose of cinema: to command an audience’s attention. What makes The Hurt Locker an astonishing film is that director Kathryn Bigelow has simply remembered this fundamental principle.
Set in Iraq, The Hurt Locker follows a small team who have the harrowing and unenviable task of defusing improvised explosive devices. Much of the film follows just three guys – Specialist Owen Eldrige (Brian Geraghty), his Seargent JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and their incoming team leader William James played, in a standout performance, by Jeremy Renner. James is reckless and frayed veteran for whom defusing bombs has become an adrenaline fix. As James grapples with a mess of frightening homemade destruction, it is Sanborn and Eldrige’s role to provide support and to watch the curious Iraqi spectators in downtown Baghdad, anxiously assessing whether these are civilians holding cellphones or insurgents with detonators. At one point a man is filming the team from a distance, Eldrige, nervously pointing his rifle, asks, “So what’s the play?” Sandborn answers, “Be smart. Make a good decision”, which says more about the confusing nature of modern warfare than pages of dialogue in lesser films. As the story unfolds, we learn whether the work or James’s behaviour will be the more mortal threat.
Filmed on location in Jordan – in some scenes less than five kilometres from the Iraqi border, with Iraqi refugees playing extras – The Hurt Locker has an unmatched visual authenticity. Shot handheld in a visceral, unmannered fashion, Kathryn Bigelow studies faces and the environment for only as long as required to remind us of the danger. The most powerful moments are the quietest, when the film takes the point of view of James in his hulking astronaut-like bombsuit, or when the camera scans the empty desolated streets for hidden menace. The editing, by Chris Innis and Bob Murawski (two Sam Raimi acolytes) is terse and unfussy, designed for clarity and tension. However it the writing, scripted by Mark Boal and based on his experiences as an embedded reporter, that gives The Hurt Locker its lasting impact and potential to win awards this season. The splendid eloquence of three characters with clear roles and motivations and a story drenched in the suspense about whether bombs, both personal and terrifyingly real, will explode.
*****
ANTHONY WALSH
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