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The Hurt Locker (2008)

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Time Out rating

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9 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Click here to read an interview with director Bigelow

Best known for 1991’s ‘Point Break’, Kathryn Bigelow is back in the frame with one of the better films about the US Army in Iraq – and one of the few not to send American audiences running for the hills. Written and co-produced by war reporter Mark Boal (who worked on Paul Haggis’s ‘In the Valley of Elah’), Bigelow’s film combines an expert management of tension with a sensitive and journalistic attention to detail: she has one eye on the truth and the other on the multiplex, and, if you can forgive her the odd sentimental or sensational flourish, this makes for an unusual mix of the thrilling and the sobering.

The film’s focus is a bomb disposal squad in Baghdad in 2004 and the 38-day rotation of Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner, pictured), an expert in defusing devices and a mouthy renegade whom you could view as either ‘hot shit’, as one superior calls him, or deserving of a sock in the jaw, as one of his peers prefers. Bigelow builds suspense and empathy by sticking closely to this small band through several episodes – including one superbly executed desert gunfight – and allowing us to experience events as they unfold for the soldiers.

The photography from ‘United 93’ DoP and regular Ken Loach collaborator Barry Ackroyd lends a frenetic immediacy to proceedings, while the use of Amman as Baghdad lends context and reality to a claustrophobic story. Bigelow is more interested in psychology than politics, but she shows just enough awareness of how the behaviour of soliders can fuel retaliation and even includes one direct suggestion that the US Army can and does choose to disregard the welfare of civilians. Most encouragingly, the film offers a fine distinction between heroism and heroics.

Click here to read an interview with director Bigelow

Author: Dave Calhoun 2009-08-25 10:27:58

Time Out London Issue 2036, 26 August – 1 September

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User reviews of this film

Polly Ellen said...

Posted on Oct 06 2009 18:29 I'm with fb on this I thought it was poor. Action ok, occasionally some real suspense - as you'd expect with bomb disposal. But characterisation weak, scripting occasionally truly terrible "I haven't got a son. I'd like a little boy. How did you do it?". Desert shootout has totally unconvincing mockney Brits who get shot much more easily than the US boys. And then they spend an age watching a building that's clearly empty. Yeah yeah. Hollywood can do so much better.

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fb said...

Posted on Sep 11 2009 20:48 I think I must've watched a different film entirely to the other reviewers! THL reminded me of gymnasts doing the floor exercise: lots of fannying about in the corners before the rolling somersaults come flying. The set-pieces are very good (though the desert shootout was spoiled by Ralph Fiennes's usual plywood performance) but I found little else to engage. The characters didn't inspire empathy and the bit with the 'Beckham' kid was sentimentally out of place. The film would've been much improved if the tone had been more blackly comic (like 'Buffalo Soldiers') while retaining a sharper political edge. I'm glad that people are watching a film about the war in Iraq; it's just a pity that THL comprises thrills and suspense and not much else.

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Andy S said...

Posted on Sep 10 2009 07:49 Absolutely brilliant, a gripping and tense masterpiece with stunning performances. Great cameos too, but the real star is Jeremy Renner. See this even if you're not a big War Movie fan...oh, and its NOT 2hrs 40 mins, its 2hrs 10 mins, FYI!! :-)

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Ant man said...

Posted on Sep 07 2009 13:29 A very very good film. One of the best I have seen in a long time.

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bugsy said...

Posted on Sep 03 2009 15:58 Gripping, but more a docu-film than plot driven. Really a montage of 'a day in the life of a US soldier'. Soft very real (I imagine) bits, and pure daft moments (US soliders take on the battle for the SAS out in the desert?!?). A rough ride and one that leaves you drained afterwards, but is rewarding if only to show what young men go through every day whle we sit in relative comfort

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GS said...

Posted on Sep 03 2009 09:49 Ths is an excelllent film.It takes you by the scruff f the neck and assaults your senses so you see and feel what these soldiers go through.

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Marek said...

Posted on Sep 01 2009 19:24 This is a fine, fine film. It concentrates on the war itself, not on any political or social sideshows. I sat through it transfixed to the screen. Only afterwards did I find out that it was 2 hours and 40 minutes long. A good film will fill the time. One aspect of the film is very engrossing - the tension/suspense. It is first class. Peoples lives are in danger almost every minute, and the direction together with all the tension is very well done.. I recommend this film highly.

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csfulham said...

Posted on Sep 01 2009 17:20 A fantastic film - although 2hrs 40 you never feel bored nor distracted - the tension keeps you going throughout. An excellent and hopefully award-winning effort from Bigelow, carried by a brilliant cast of relative unknowns (with the exception of a Fiennes cameo which plays excellently) . One definitely for the collection when it's out on DVD.

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Rohne Hill said...

Posted on Aug 28 2009 18:28 An IED of a film if you will.
Lean, mean, comprised of multiple episodic parts, some old and some new, nothing too flashy or polished but deadly efficient.
Bigelow deserves credit for not only for securing two effective "unknowns" as the leads but also the manner in which she transfers the tension, relaying it cumatively from one episode to the next without ever making it actually feel episodic.
Although I've appreciated her very early work, I've never counted myself as a fan, but her jaunt in the wilderness as really paid off here.
Personally this is her finest hour or two.
The ending of an astronaut plodding off into a world of quite possible death ranks up there with the best.

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