Review: 'The Hurt Locker' is exhilarating and draining

The Hurt Locker
Cast: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Evangeline Lilly, Ralph Fiennes, Guy Pearce, Christian Camargo, Suhail Aldabbach, Sam Spruell
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Rating: * * * ½

This is a film that will make Americans feel good about themselves. The film is a birds-eye view of US bomb squad technicians volunteering to challenge the odds, defusing/detonating live bombs in order to save lives in one of the world’s most dangerous places, Iraq.

That is as it may be but lets not forget that the US itself was responsible for making it all so dangerous and life-threatening. Bigelow’s film does not traverse behind the scenes as to why it all happened. It doesn’t even cross-reference with the past yet the film manages to paint a riveting picture. It’s a realism that is concentrated and riddled in hyperbole.

The script is written by journalist and screenwriter Mark Boal who was embedded with a special bomb squad in Iraq so there is no room for doubt regarding it’s elemental authenticity. The events set in 2004 Iraq are a tragic picture of men defined by conflict. The film opens with a quote from Chris Hedges, a former war correspondent for The New York Times, declaring that “war is a drug.” We are privy to that truth in the ensuing two hours of  thrilling and heart-pounding  moment to moment experiences that are effective in realising  the effects of combat and danger on the human psyche.

Specialist Owen Eldridge(Brian Geraghty) is nervy, vulnerable and ashamed of his own fears, Sgt JT Sanborn(Anthony Mackie) is driven by protocol and is unstintingly professional in approach while the new Delta import Staff Sgt. William James(Jeremy Renner) is an adrenaline junkie who prefers to live on the edge of the wire- Three members of the Army’s Elite Explosive Disposal (EOD) squad  who battle insurgents and each other as they search for and hope to maim several bombs lying unexploded  in the ruins and wreckage of Baghdad.

It’s a super high-risk task and the margin of error is zero  The atmosphere is super charged, the lead characters are in a heightened emotional state, the intensity is further heightened by the grungy hell-scape painted by Barry Ackroyd’s handheld cameras.

The daily grind of the trio is exhausting  and heavily suspenseful. Moments of shock and awe, stomach churning and secondary trauma are experiences of the live-wire danger set-up so fruitfully by Bigelow. The set-pieces are all brilliantly executed. Thrills are a given. Put together meticulously, this film is  both exhilarating and draining!