Film Review

'The Hurt Locker'

This latest film from the former Mrs. J Cameron, Kathryn Bigelow, continues her high octane love of men living on the edge as we join a US bomb disposal unit on their latest tour of Iraq. After their commanding officer (Guy Pierce) loses his life on a mission that goes horribly wrong the team are joined by renegade, reckless Staff Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner) who's constant insanity dances with death and threatens to blow apart the entire squad.

Gone are the cinematic flourishes of her previous films, such as 'Near Dark' and the stylish 'Point Break', in favour of handheld cameras which cleverly disorientate and throw you off-balance as we follow the everyday lives of the soldiers in question. The intense vérité style pushes realism to breaking point as the claustrophobic tension builds to unnerving levels. In one unbearable scene with the sun pushing down on them, soldiers face off against insurgents in a chess game of long distance rifle fire - it's truly exhausting to watch. In fact, very little time is given for you to take a breath as we quickly shift from area to area as the team are called out to investigate any number of suspected home made devices concealed within the rubble of Baghdad.

Although the film plants itself in reality it also has a decided sci-fi quality about it which is very reminiscent of Cameron's 'Aliens'. The arid landscapes with an unknown threat lurking behind every corner, POV shots from inside the protective bomb disposal suits add to the stifling, enclosed feeling as the soldiers restricted breath reverberates through the comms system. And death for them has many forms, some of which seem decidedly innocent at first. Prying eyes peer out of the darkness as spectators look on from their war scarred homes, an amateur cameramen waits like a hungry vulture as he films the events with a sense of expectation or the glimpse of a mobile phone could mean it's all over, everything and everybody is a possible trigger.

The plot flickers through a series of detached encounters that the EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) team go through with focus on the growing addiction of lose cannon Staff Sergeant William James who is arguably the squad’s biggest danger. Cocksure and headstrong he heads off into the blast zone, an adrenaline-junkie looking for his next fix, each mission only briefly taking the edge off before his drug of choice begins to wear off! Emotions are brought to the surface as he tries to discover common ground with his team mates and even attempts to bond with a local street kid who sells knock-off DVD's, but ultimately he treats everything with the same challenge level as disarming a bomb, continuously getting swept back up in the swirling tornado of a job he can't stand being away from. His awkwardness is brilliantly captured when he returns home to his wife and child, struggling to deal with normal life he seems more out of place and unable to cope than when his life hangs at the end of a red wire.

Thankfully the film manages to stay relevant but is rarely used as ammunition to fire at the Bush administration or to comment on the current situation in Iraq. Instead Kathryn Bigelow has managed to make something very special, a thrilling and edgy war film that gives you a sense of involvement not felt since the opening sequence in 'Saving Private Ryan' which stays with you long after the closing credits.

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