The Hurt Locker
The Hurt Locker is another war movie, set in Iraq and following some American soldiers. Except for the most part it is about three men’s journey’s as they enter the last 39 days of their tour there.
The Hurt Locker is billed as a “riveting, suspenseful portrait of the courage under fire of the military’s unrecognized heroes: the technicians of a bomb squad”. These guys battle every day to defuse bombs left in public places in Baghdad to save civilians from being killed but at the same time they are alone in public settings and cannot stay for very long. The longer they take to defuse a bomb, the more likely they are to become sitting targets for insurgents.
For the most part the movie follows the story of Staff Sgt James (Jeremy Renner) who arrives to Camp Victory to take the place of a Sgt Thompson who died defusing a bomb. He is a bit of a lone wolf, and a renegade, described by one of his new colleagues as ‘redneck trailer trash’. His arrogance and surety of himself, his laissez-faire attitude to the life or death situations he finds himself in infuriate his new team of two, Sgt Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Sgt Eldridge (Brian Geraghty). Not a good thing when you are relying on each other to watch your backs in heated, pressurised situations.
The audio and visuals in this movies were amazing, the detail and clarity of both were superb. I normally wouldn’t notice such things, the fact that I did can only mean that they were out of this world!
I found the movie a little too long at 124 minutes but other than that I can’t say anything bad about it. The New York Times desribed it as a “viscerally exciting, adrenaline-fueled tour de force” and I can’t put it better than that 🙂
The Hurt Locker opens in cinemas today, Friday 28 August. You can watch the HD trailer here.
Thanks to Element Pictures for the photos and the chance to see the movie preview.
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I’m really looking forward to catching this. Last somewhat decent Iraq war film I saw was Redacted.
I’ll reserve judgement, but this is the first positive thing I’ve heard about The Hurt Locker. I’ll go see it.
I’ve heard a lot of good reports about this, and Bigelow has a few gems in her back catalogue. Might try to catch it on the big screen.