The Hurt Locker” is set in the Iraq of 2004 when the American military death toll reached 1,000 (but it was mainly filmed in Jordan). It opens with a quote from the New York Times, “war is a drug”. “You are now in the kill zone”-the cinematography on this film is so creative that you, watching from your safe seat in a cinema, become the fourth soldier on the team and walk the walk with them.

The horrors and the thrills are all wrapped up together. It is actually a movie full of surprises, with the realism of the best documentaries, and without all the artificial digital imagery that has been thrown at audiences over the past decade-it is so real, compared to it, the war scenes in “Avatar” are empty, hollow CIG creations.  A team of three forms a bomb disposal unit-called “EOD”  [Explosive Ordinance Demolition] or “the most dangerous job in the world”-because it takes place in the heat of combat. On the team’s first outing, with less than two months to go for Bravo Company before leave in the United States, they are called out to deal with a bomb in the a road. The Iraqi’s observe silently from a distance while the crew struggles and sweats.

Specialist Owen Eldridge (played by Brian Geraghty), who is young and white, says jokingly to Sergeant JT  Sanborn (acted by Anthony Mackie), a mature African-American, “You know what this place needs? Grass!”, and suggests they go into business together when the war is over for them: “Sanborn and Sons”. The absence of a son is an issue that troubles Sanborn. He doesn’t want to die without leaving a son behind. He reaches the point that he hates being in Iraq. Eldridge’s bottom line is: “If you are in Iraq you are dead”.

Staff Sergeant Matt Thompson (Guy Pearce) dons the bomb protective suit, but does not respond quickly enough to the warning from his mates that there is man on a balcony with a cell phone. Sergeant Sanborn and Specialist Eldridge are the ones to place his possessions in a locker to be shipped home to Thompson’s nearest relatives. 

The new leader of their trio is Staff Sergeant William James (an amazing Jeremy Renner who gives a gripping performance) who takes them through eight more violent incidents (including one at their base). Eldridge and Sanborn quickly learn that their Staff Sergeant is a wild card, addicted to war, to the rush of adrenaline that accompanies defusing and dismantling bombs. James’s sickness is even greater than this, as he craves engagement and seeks it even when he doesn’t need to. The tragedy is that James’s bravado endangers the lives of others as he commands them to follow him into action.

Sanborn has James’s number: “I’m pretty sure I can figure out a redneck piece of trailer trash like you”. James replies, “Well, it looks like you’re on the right track”. When in a taxi that is loaded with bombs James becomes annoyed with Sanborn for telling him that they have been there too long, it is too dangerous, evacuate. His irritated response is to remove his headset. Later, back in their armoured vehicle, a Humvee, Sanborn hits James in the face, “never take your headset off again”.  Sanborn has seven years of service behind him, is professional in his approaches and follows the rules. Their job is to deactivate threats - others are meant to follow up after them. Sanborn even keeps souvenirs of past missions under his bed, much to the horror of his team. In one case James even seeks retribution on his own and quickly retreats when he faces violence perpetuated by a woman.

An officer, Colonel Reed (David Morse), impressed with Staff Sergeant William James’s accomplishments, calls to him, “You are hot shit. You are a wild man”, and asks how many missions he has been on. It takes James some time before he can say, “837 disarmed”. Owen Eldridge, on the other hand is a novice who wants to live, fears death, and talks to an army shrink (Christian Camargo), whose platitudes about the meaning of life and war he rejects as rubbish. When challenged, the aloof Yale graduate says, “I’ve done my field duty”. Later, he asks to be the fourth man on a mission, but he makes the mistake of relying on words in a situation that requires action.

In a separate scene, where they go to rescue a contractor’s vehicle stranded in the desert, it involves not disposal, but a long shoot out. This sequence allows for the presence of a big-name actor: Ralph Fiennes. In it Owen Eldridge will come of age. This is a surprising film in the way it dissects and present masculine violence. War and its complications remains a territory dominated by men.

Linda Vergnani reviewing Helen Caldicott’s book The New Nuclear Danger in THES notes the psychosexual relationship men have with bombs and weapons. “They talk about missile erectors, and soft lay downs and deep penetrations. Scientists sleep with mechanisms of the nuclear bomb the night before it is tested. They talk about giving birth to the bomb, about needing to push, about having labour pains. It is a quite extraordinary psychological insight into these fellows who are trying to be like women, but instead of giving birth to life they are giving birth to death. 

That is true pathology”. Bigelow and her team are sensitive to these dimensions, bringing out shocking parallels in the way the men in Hurt Locker relate to weapons of death.

Hurt Locker is two hours and eight minutes long. It is rated 15+. The director is Kathryn Bigelow working to a script by Mark Boal who was a journalist who covered the war in Iraq. The cinematographer is Barry Ackroyd. The editors are Bob Murawski and Chris Innis. The music is by Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders. The production designer is Karl Juliusson. 
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