The Hurt Locker

Everyone knows that war is hell, but that doesn't stop various filmmakers from trying to make the same point again and again. The hope is that one of those filmmakers will sift through the rubble and find something new, something potent waiting to be uncovered and explored on the big screen. But too often does the message arrive in echoing fashion, signalling a new look standing up for an old attitude. The latest director to charge head first into cinematic battle is Kathryn Bigelow, one of the few female filmmakers who routinely revels in thrills and chills.

Such a distinction makes Bigelow a unique voice amid the guttural growls of her testosterone-fuelled peers, but that voice does not always translate to celluloid with all of the imagination and individuality that one might expect. Bigelow's latest movie is The Hurt Locker, a rough-and-tumble Iraq war drama that follows a few soldiers who specialize in disarming explosives. The surviving members of Bravo Company have only a handful of weeks left on their tours, so the movie regularly counts down the days before these soldiers can pack their bags and go home.

Knowing that these bomb experts are so close to the end makes their journey an initially interesting one, but as the movie progresses, the script (credited to journalist and screenwriter Mark Boal) and Bigelow's direction hit a roadblock. The daily routine of the Bravo Company soldiers is so repetitive that The Hurt Locker slowly runs out of ways to present the same situation. The soldiers wake up, suit up, and go out into the crumbling streets of Baghdad to disarm a bomb. Then they head back to the base and prepare to do it all again tomorrow.

This approach reaps some benefits, such as when Bigelow manages to lull the audience (and the soldiers, too, perhaps) into a sense of false security. Because life in the scorching, war-torn desert is so monotonous, a brief moment of quiet in what seems to be the middle of nowhere feels like a peaceful break. But just as we're sinking into our seats, enjoying the calm breath of fresh air, bullets begin to fly and the soldiers are instantly pinned down by enemy gunfire. This particular sequence is gripping in every way, putting us in the middle of the battle and illuminating such unexpected problems as ammunition that gets jammed because the bullets are caked in blood.

The Hurt Locker has a handful of these sequences and they ultimately serve as the saving grace of the movie. The disappointing thing is that these sequences are scattered across a vast and empty narrative that is essentially focused on three thinly etched characters. The movie's protagonist is Staff Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner, delivering a serviceable, if somewhat underwhelming, performance), an explosives expert who has disarmed more than eight hundred bombs in his career. James has a kid back home, but his heart belongs to the army, a point that is made many times by the bold exuberance with which he approaches his job.

James struts into dangerous, life-threatening situations with overflowing amounts of confidence. He treats every heroic moment with such cocky bravado that he seems almost invincible in the face of war. Or maybe the battle-addicted soldier simply has a death wish. Either way, James makes a habit of upsetting his fellow team members Sergeant JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty). The trio have their disagreements, but they are all aware that they must make the best of their situation every time they step into enemy territory.

As James, Sanborn, and Eldridge near the end of their tour, The Hurt Locker occasionally flirts with the possibility of uncovering something new. When the explosions occur, the sound reverberates in every direction, immersing the viewer in the terrifying experience of having your bones rattled by the horror of battle. But the men behind the guns and protective gear are never particularly engaging or dramatically purposeful. Each character fills the screen with pounds of macho attitude until the crucial, clichéd moment in which each individual must show their sensitive side. If anything is to be taken from this type of adrenaline junkie battle movie, it is that war is so undeniably hellish that it even makes tough, grown men cry.

The action elements at work in The Hurt Locker are presented with precision and flair, but the dramatic elements often feel too forced and obvious. Certain moments are achingly predictable, which results in some scenes feeling like recycled material. Bigelow has constructed some very impressive sequences that prey on our knowledge and expectations of the genre, but then that very approach undermines the movie when the characters are exposed as little more than cardboard cut-outs going through the motions.

The Hurt Locker is neither a pro-war film nor an anti-war film, but rather something in between. It struggles to find its voice and ends up circling the same narrative space that so many war movies have travelled before. This movie may have a point buried somewhere deep within it, but this finished version can only communicate a small portion of its thoughts and ideas. War is supposedly addictive, a terrible, murderous drug waiting to swallow the soul of man. It is an intriguing notion, but the fully formed voice of the movie is stuck on the tip of Bigelow's tongue. The Hurt Locker is filled with good stuff, but the integral emotional connection to the characters is disappointingly discarded, upsettingly upstaged by the things that go boom.