Even though it's far superior to any other species on the planet (as far as we know), the human brain has always been riddled with its fair share of weaknesses and shortcomings. Even those with tremendous resolve and discipline have fallen prey to the demons of the mind: more specifically, addiction. Everyone either has or had an addiction, be they very mild or incredibly severe.
But what if a something as awful and dangerous as war could be addictive? A drug personified by the constant need to get an adrenaline fix by way of killing enemy combatants? That very conundrum drives Kathryn Bigelow's masterful and emotionally intense The Hurt Locker, one of the latest films to cover the current wars in the Middle East, but probably the first to actually delve into the psychological frames of mind our troops certainly may be in.
Set in 2004 Baghdad, two members of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit, Spec. Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) and Sgt. JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), have recently lost their leader (Guy Pearce) after he was killed by a remote-controlled IED. Soon enough, his replacement comes in the form of Sgt. First Class William James (Jeremy Renner), a decorated bomb disposal expert with nearly 900 defused bombs under his belt. The problem for Sanborn and Eldridge, however, is that James is a cocksure risktaker who, while highly proficient at his job, performs using unnecessarily dangerous methods. In a dangerous battlezone where insurgents and bombs are anywhere and everywhere, such tactics cause friction between James and his subordinates, with tension and stress building up with every bomb and every firefight.
Unlike previous films about the Iraq War, Bigelow throws politics out the window, instead focusing on the mindsets of these three men going from one precarious situation to another, and how the stress of war slowly but surely cracks away one's sanity, piece by piece.
Rather than the conventional war movie formula where we learn at length about the soldiers' families and home lives, The Hurt Locker mainly focuses on the "now": the movie is more like a series of vignettes, rather than a straightforward narrative. Almost every scene is wrought with extreme tension. You can almost literally feel the panic, fear, and adrenaline rush these men experience while under the pressure of not only defusing a bomb (timer or not), but also the threat of Iraqi insurgents hiding in plain sight, ready to strike. And all these scenes run the full gamut of possible outcomes: when it's clearly too late to defuse an IED, especially when civilian lives are at stake, the results are utterly heartbreaking.
Despite the war genre being dominated by men in the past, Bigelow (Point Break) is no small potatoes when it comes to crafting an emotional, intense, action-packed, and thrilling film experience. Every frame reeks of authenticity, from the production design (Jordan stood in for Iraq for filming), cinematography (the kudos going to Barry Ackroyd for a gritty, realistic, "you are there" element), a solid screenplay by Mark Boal, and manic, heart-pounding editing.
But all of that wouldn't click if it weren't for the fabulous onscreen talent. Mackie and Geraghty are completely convincing as two soldiers reaching their own breaking points in an everyday life-or-death scenario. But it's Renner who steals the show. Calm, steely, with a hint of unpredictability in his eyes, William is portrayed as a man who works on instinct rather than protocol, and it's obvious to the audience that war is more than a mere profession to him: it's becoming an addiction. It's a fascinating, award-worthy performance by Renner that personifies the emotional core of the film.
Far superior to those war films that choose to blindly celebrate hyper-macho attitudes rather than analyze them, The Hurt Locker is a one-of-a-kind experience that eschews political discourse and instead focuses on the human side of war. Do not miss this movie.
Letter Grade: "A"
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