I dreaded seeing The Hurt Locker, a movie about an American bomb disposal squad in post-invasion Iraq, simply because the subject of Iraq stirs up in me tremendous anger and guilt. And my dread is mostly justified. This is a dark, dark film, offering little in the way of redemption. Following a month in the life of a three-man bomb squad, from awful situation to awful situation, director Kathryn Bigelow (best known for thrillers such as the wonderful Point Blank and K-19: The Widowmaker) adopts a close-camera, frenetic style that frightened me. The plot is underpinned by focusing on the new head of the team, William James (played superbly by Jeremy Remmer), who turns out to be the ultimate daredevil, apparently with no fear. But one could be excused for reckoning the arc of the plot is dangerous bomb situation followed by dangerous bomb situation followed by another and then another, each one working well or ending badly, almost at random. Nothing is spared in portraying the bomb-wrecked, poverty-stricken streets, or the ghastly effects of bombs.
I did exit the cinema shaken, but there was something about The Hurt Locker that utterly captivated me, and subsequent musing suggests two reasons. Firstly, in a real sense the movie isn’t about defusing bombs, it’s about the nature of risk-taking in life. Bomb tyro maniac James seems unstoppable but begins to unravel with tension and horror, and the closing scenes sees him reflect on what he values in life (check out the ending). And, just as importantly, The Hurt Locker reinforces, to anyone willing to see beyond kinetic action, what a miserable hellhole Iraq, mostly a creation of our hated soldiers, engaged in a war of no point and no victory.
Go and see The Hurt Locker – you’ll come away stunned, I hope for the right reasons.