The Hurt Locker (2009)
Unfortunately, The Hurt Locker unfolds like a two-hour video game. It starts with no backstory, no character development, and no initial perspective. The setting is the Iraq War, and our “player” is with the U.S. Army’s EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal). Naturally, the audience can’t participate, so we observe from the sidelines while our player navigates through each challenging level. The object of the game is to disarm bombs and not blow up. At the end, our player pushes “reset” and starts a new game. I have just described the entire plot.
I’m not into video games and even less into watching other people play them. As a result, The Hurt Locker is at the bottom of the Best Picture list, as far as I’m concerned. I’ve suffered through it twice before, and for the purpose of this blog, I bit the bullet and watched it a third time. Unlike Slumdog Millionaire, which I now enjoy quite a lot, this one hasn’t improved with age, time, or an evolved perspective on my part. There’s just not enough to it, and I still think it’s a stinker.
I do admire the technical aspects and effort. Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Director, and she gives this movie a “documentary” feel but overdoes the wobbly hand-held shots, jerky pans, and quick edits. It’s a trick that wears out its welcome in the first scene but lasts for the duration. Her frenetic style can’t make up for a lack of content, and what little we get is repetitive and uninvolving. With Platoon, which is another winner I don’t embrace, I at least get to follow a couple of fleshed-out characters: the opposing sergeants played by Willem Dafoe and Tom Berenger. The Hurt Locker offers little depth, even though the actors give it their all. Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, and the others are fine, but I can’t watch soldiers disable bombs for two hours. It’s not enough. Even after we’re introduced to familiar faces like Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes, and David Morse as if their mere presence conjures an interesting backstory, they disappear within minutes, and we know nothing about them. I keep waiting for something else, something more to happen in the story, but no—there’s another bomb to disable. And another. And another. Yeah, I get it—that’s their job. But I got it the first time.
About halfway through, we finally have a brief scene where the three primary team members drink and wrestle each other in the barracks. We’re thrown a crumb that one has a kid, another isn’t ready to have kids, and the third has a nervous condition but doesn’t like talking to his doctor about it. The more they drink, the more intense their wrestling gets until a knife is pulled. Then they back off and cool down. That’s it, folks, as far as deep-dive character development goes. We’re back to bombs after that. The first time I saw this film, I wasn’t sure of the outcome, so these repetitious disablings provided nail-biting impact—but a “roller-coaster ride” alone isn’t a movie, it’s an amusement park attraction. And that’s what this experience is like. Since I know the turns and swoops now, it’s the same ride, over and over again. Maybe that’s enough to satisfy some, but not me.
Perhaps the Iraq War setting was timely enough on its own to induce a reaction so powerful and overwhelming that audiences didn’t miss having more of a plot. The closest we come to a notable change in course is when Renner’s character, Sgt. James, goes from “detached, cocky, and fearless” to “somewhat invested,” which works against him in the war. After a neighborhood boy he befriends is killed and his corpse used as a human bomb, something inside James snaps. He seeks revenge against the killer(s), and as a result, shoots a member of his own team (Brian Geraghty) in a botched, unplanned raid.
Following his tour of duty, James is sent home, and we see him wandering the aisles of a grocery store, lost in the sameness and repetitiveness of it all—as if sameness and repetitiveness were new to him. He tries to engage with his wife (Evangeline Lilly) and baby son at home, but he still identifies as a bomb disabler. That’s who he is—and nothing more, or at least nothing worth noting or depicting on film. So, he presses “reset,” and it’s back to the war again for another tour. The end. Roll the credits.
The Hurt Locker premiered at the Venice International Film Festival in 2008, which is a year before its release in the U.S. (2009), making it the third movie after Casablanca and Crash to win Best Picture for the eligible year following its debut. It was a critics’ darling, but adjusted for inflation, it remains (as of this post) the lowest-grossing Best Picture in Academy history.
I grow tired of movies that attempt to succeed on shock value alone. “War is Hell! See? Let me show you how horrible it is for two hours!” Films like The Hurt Locker offer zero insight, and it’s a colossal copout. Allowing audiences to decide what to make of it all means the creative team is either too lazy, too guarded, or too passive-aggressive about their own opinion to put it out there. Afraid to make a specific comment? Why? You hurl guts, blood, and gore at us to elicit a visceral response and stop after that, like some sort of smug mic drop. It’s a cheap thrill, and it doesn’t cut it for me. You have to say more as a filmmaker and try harder. Presenting the “wow” all by itself, even if it’s well executed, will never be enough for me.
The Hurt Locker
Director | Kathryn Bigelow |
Primary Cast | Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes, David Morse, Evangeline Lilly, Christian Camargo, Christopher Sayegh |
Familiar Faces | Ralph Fiennes from Schindler’s List and The English Patient, Anthony Mackie from Million Dollar Baby |
Firsts | First woman to win Best Director (Kathryn Bigelow), first Best Picture directed by a woman |
Total Wins | 6 (Picture, Director, Screenplay: Original, Editing, Sound: Mixing, Sound: Editing) |
Total Nominations | 9 (Picture, Director, Actor: Jeremy Renner, Screenplay: Original, Cinematography, Editing, Sound: Mixing, Sound: Editing, Score) |
Viewing Format | Blu-ray Disc |
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