In contrast, Coppola's Apocalypse Now immersed us in the dense, murky jungles of Vietnam while Brando, Duvall and Sheen breathed life into fully realized characters. Hurt Locker's director Kathryn Bigelow certainly conveys the chaotic nature of the Iraq War, with uncertainty and danger lurking around each bend in the road in the form of IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices), but her characters are only two-dimensional. At the end we get a glimpse of what makes the star, William James (Jeremy Renner) tick, but it is a surface view at best.
William James is a demolitions expert. He walks into dangerous situation after dangerous situation with the look and attitude of Gary Cooper going after the bad guys in old westerns. He displays no emotions. You know that he will come out of this virtually unscathed, at least physically. Since he has top billing this comes as no surprise. Displaying human emotion is left to his two partners, JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty). Sanborn is in constant conflict with James. Eldridge is scared but manages to perform under the pressure of it all.
There is no real plot in Hurt Locker -- just endless mayhem continuing day after day, scene after scene -- probably as fair a representation of war as one could hope to see, I suppose. But it leaves the audience exhausted. We wait for character development and the only one we are given is what feels like an obligatory interaction between the troubled Eldridge and his psychiatrist. It doesn't work all that well, falling well short of the catharsis we need after all this pain and suffering.
Despite my complaints, Hurt Locker remains a film worth seeing: professionally made and well-paced. But it plays much more like an action genre outing than a classic war picture, which seems a shame because it could have been truly special had it taken the time to let us get to know our characters instead of constantly throwing them into the fray. It is probably far too soon to give us THE Iraq War film so let's just look at Hurt Locker at the first one that gave it an earnest try, falling just slightly short of its target.
| Movie title | Hurt Locker |
|---|---|
| Release year | 2009 |
| MPAA Rating | R |
| Our rating | |
| Summary | The Iraq War provides the setting for this chaotic film, and while its portrayal of the conflict may be accurate, the repetitive nature of the story, and the lack of real character development are a bit hard to handle. |
