Review: The Hurt Locker

Kathryn Bigelow's new film about the war in Iraq opens with a quote: "The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug." These words describe the life of Staff Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner), an expert in diffusing roadside bombs. Unlike many of men in his Explosive Ordinance Disposal squad, James seems to relish the opportunity to strap on his bomb suit and throw himself into harm's way. In fact, he collects mementos from his various missions; he says he finds it "interesting to hold something in your hand that could have killed any one of us." His comrades are less interested in the action as they are in staying alive. Completing the EOD team are Sgt. JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), a no-nonsense, "by the book" soldier in every way, and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), a young man struggling with a guilty conscience and the horrors of war. Both of these men clash with James' giant personality and his unquestioning gung-ho attitude. While these descriptions may sound like stock characters from a made-for-TV movie, the interactions between these men are genuine and more interesting than you might expect.

The film has many suspenseful and realistic battle scenes that highlight the psychological stresses of war. Using handheld cameras, Bigelow repeatedly changes the audience's vantage point, including showing the perspective of enemy combatants and innocent bystanders. In many cases, it's difficult for the audience to tell them apart. This is the ultimate challenge for soldiers fighting in the streets of Iraq: how do you distinguish between everyday citizens and the people who are trying to kill you? In this way, Bigelow uses the EOD's missions as a lens for analyzing the complexity of the larger war on terror. The action in the film is sometimes frenetic, maximizing the tension, confusion, and paranoia of each mission. However, Bigelow exercises patience in allowing scenes to develop naturally and realistically. Just as the soldiers needed to stay at full attention in order to survive, I found myself at the Code Orange alertness level throughout the film as well. The true suspense of battle comes from the cat and mouse struggle for survival, not in the guns-blazing, explosion-filled escapades of many Hollywood war films. In the wake of the "Transformers" sequel, this aspect of the movie was quite refreshing.

Though the film does not delve into the reasons for the Iraq war, it implicitly suggests that these wars are tailored for certain types of people. James is an arrogant cowboy with a cocky bravado that sometimes endangers those around him (remind you of anyone?). However, he is still the hero of the story. Renner plays this character with a great deal of complexity and compassion. We get the sense that James is not really a war-monger; rather, he is simply a man who needs the action to give meaning to his life. As with any other opiate, the deeper James is involved in the conflict, the more he needs the rush to get through the day.

This is not the first film to examine the psyche of soldiers embroiled in conflict (see "All Quiet on the Western Front", "Platoon," or "Jarhead" to name a few). However, if wars are so hellish and psychologically damaging, why does our society continue to engage in them? "The Hurt Locker" suggests that there is a physiological addiction to war engrained in human nature. While this characteristic is responsible for great heroism on the battlefield, Bigelow suggests that it is also the reason for society's continued dependence on war.

The Hurt Locker: 4/5