The Hurt Locker (2009)
The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug.
What does it take to keep a person running into a burning building even if it’s to save someone’s life? How do police step into dangerous situations every day? What makes a person tick who can risk his or her life repeatedly defusing bombs? The Hurt Locker takes a look at that last question, and does so in a breathtaking, adrenaline rush of a film.
This may be the most exciting film that came out last year. It was far more nail-biting than any ordinary action film that I sat through. Thanks to Kathryn Bigelow’s direction and Barry Ackroyd’s dynamic camerawork, we become a part of Bravo company as they attempt to locate and disarm IEDs in Iraq. Each situation is a little bit worse than the last and we worry a little bit more each time.
The performances are top-notch. Jeremy Renner plays Staff Sergeant William James, a man that is driven to figure out his lethal puzzles despite the qualms of his comrades. This creates tension with the other two members of Bravo company: Sgt. J. T. Sanborn and Spc. Owen Eldridge. Sanborn is a man imbued with a healthy dose of common sense and a natural instinct to survive. He has little patience for James’s insistence on personally disarming every bomb. Poor Eldridge is caught in the middle and has his own issues. A couple of big stars show up for well-crafted cameos: Ralph Fiennes and Guy Pierce. Still, this movie belongs to the newcomers and they rise to the occasion.
Thinking of this film, I was reminded of my younger days as a student in an Electronic Engineering Technology program. I think several of the guys I met during that time would understand James’s addiction to figuring out the explosive devices…how he feels a personal challenge between himself and the bombmaker. I think that under different circumstances one or two of those guys might be another James. I hope they never get there. We need people like James and Bravo company, but I’d like to think that most of them have Sanborn’s healthier attitude toward his job than James’s. Anything else is too sad to contemplate.
