"The Hurt Locker": a Review Out of Step

As an action movie, "The Hurt Locker" gets a B+ from me so I can't accurately be called a contrarian. It's an action film worth watching, and the EOD specialty is both interesting and terrifying. However, I'm struck by the critical avoidance of obvious issues which are embedded, like IEDs on a well-traveled road.

I can appreciate the quandary of context faced by Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal. The war in Iraq has been a cause célèbre for the American political left, and the current President gained ground by making a well-publicized anti-war speech during his 2004 Senate campaign. Current defenders of the U.S. Iraq policy point to the removal and prosecution of Saddam Hussein and the success of the military surge in clearing Fallujah of terrorist insurgents.

It is interesting to note that Iraq is voting today for the second time, on the day of the Academy Awards ceremony. It is a vote made possible by the sacrifice of thousands of American, British, Coalition and Iraqi lives. The votes of an Academy Award committee are part of an annual ritual process but the committee should recognize that an Oscar vote total isn't worth one Purple Heart or even one plain vanilla honorable discharge.

The makers of this movie didn't want to offend either "side." In making "The Hurt Locker," the filmmakers decided on a kind of cinematographic neutrality intended to completely remove context from the film. They have only partly succeeded but, in removing context, have also relegated the film to the niche of action-adventure films.

The script and direction are tightly focused on the three or four members of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit. Jeremy Renner carries the role of lead character William James with discipline, focus, a notable intensity, and quite a bit of morbid, ironic humor.

The other characters of the EOD unit are capable and give solid supporting performances in a script which doesn't provide them much opportunity for expansion. They're stock characters but interesting enough to underscore the action. There's the obligatory suggestion of racial tension when Sergeant Osborn characterizes the new arrival as Southern trailer trash. The stereotyping continues later, when the two are fighting, and Osborne pulls a blade. Black guys always cut each other with knives, don't you know? It's the typical cinematic fantasy of a white liberal elite, and it does nothing for the film.

However, the notion of an over the top bomb technician( or any type of war fighter) who sails high above the wall of risk is no exaggeration. Having defused 800 bombs, the William James character is numb to the fear of death. It's not a rare phenomenon on battlefields, to be compelled to act beyond human limits, to become something more than oneself.

Fearlessness in battle is not a good proscription for long life. In the film, bomb technician Thompson gets killed in the opening sequences. Will James comes to take his place and has a disconcerting lack of appreciation for the Grim Reaper. James' casual attitude in the face of death is underappreciated by the members of his squad.

But if political context is avoided in "The Hurt Locker," then why base this film in Iraq? All wars have powder packed booby traps and unexploded bombs. If the idea was to make the standard character-driven war movie, then why not make it Afghanistan or Stalingrad, or Kosovo, or Hue? The reason, of course, is to make use of the unpopular theme of the Iraq war to engage an audience. Iraq has particular and specific meaning in American context. The desire for financial success drives most filmscripts, this one included.

I'm not condemning profit; I'm just saying that that the levels of it must be recognized and identified in evaluating the cultural, artistic, and thematic aspects of a film. Not that high art has ever been the most defining characteristic of the Hollywood Oscars. After all, the evanescent artistic flourishes of nominated films like "Avatar" never pretend to be anything but mass market entertainment.

I saw Kathryn Bigelow and Marc Boal being interviewed about their film a while back on television. They seemed tense at the questions, at great pains to avoid political statements-however more easily accomplished in conversation than in film.

In "The Hurt Locker," it is a conspicuous matter that there are no "friendlies." The entire population is hostile toward the American troops. Was that Fallujah before the Marines and Army Rangers shredded the insurgency there? The filmmakers don't tell you. But whether it's spoken or identified, the film clearly takes a political position. "They don't want us there." A rather obvious clue that "The Hurt Locker" is an anti-war film is the statement made by Will James when he observes the rough handling by U.S. troops of a detainee-suspect.

"If he wasn't an insurgent, he is now."

The sentiment is in harmony with the left-liberal cant that terrorism is the direct result of American policy. But if the barbarism of Coalition troops in Iraq is a sub-plot of the action movie, it is at least an equal opportunity barbarism. One scene depicts a teenage boy who has been disemboweled by terrorist insurgents to accommodate a bomb pack, placed in the abdominal cavity of the victim. No amount of coalition troop rudeness or rough handling can top that, nor will it ever.

But Hollywood will continue to compress, simplify, and codify complex real-life occurrences into comforting bromides, like the on-screen quote at the beginning of "The Hurt Locker" which depicts war as a drug. That quote has seemed to impress establishment film critics like Roger Ebert who heaps lavish praise on the clichéd opening of the film and the rest of it, too. Such breathless excitement is not shared by all, however. According to the Los Angeles Times, many veterans reject the inauthentic renderings of life in the Afghan and Iraqi war zones.

In an article titled "Veterans Put Their Own War Stories on Film," Afghan war veteran Kyle Arnett exhibits veteran angst at Hollywood's cinematic narcissism:

"I'm so mad there has been such critical response for "The Hurt Locker. It's so inaccurate."

Former Marine Master Sergeant Jeffery Sarver has issues with the "The Hurt Locker," loosely based on Sarver's war-fighting experiences. Screenwriter Marc Boal was imbedded in Sarver's unit for three weeks to get the story used by the filmmakers in the production. High profile lawyer Geoffrey Fieger has filed a lawsuit on behalf of Sarver claiming that he should share in the multi-million dollars profits from the film story.

Having read this, it would be wrong to conclude I didn't appreciate the film for what it is-an action war movie. My point was rather that there are critical viewpoints which must be expressed in the interest of honest filmmaking. I remember something a "lifer" Airborne sergeant once told me when I was bitching about something or other. It seems somehow to fit into this review:

"Remember, boah. In this life, they's some who parade, some who played, and some who paid."

It would be well if, during the lavish Academy Award ceremony tonight, the committee remembered and paid suitable respect to the "some who paid."