Shadow: Dead Riot Shadow: Dead Riot
Sep
10
2008

TIFF Review: THE HURT LOCKER

Posted by Todd Brown at 11:57am.

Posted in Film & DVD Reviews , Drama, Action, USA & Canada, Toronto Film Festival 2008.

I present to you a basic Hollywood reality that should have been recognized long ago but apparently has not been:  This is a bad time to be making an Iraq War film.  Good film, bad film, big cast, no cast, fiction, documentary, it really doesn’t matter.  Whatever the merits of the film in question - and there have been a number of good ones made - if it is about the Iraq War it is destined to fail at the box office as has been proven repeatedly over the last year.  The conflict is still far too fresh, still far too much in the news and an audience overloaded by Iraq every night on the six o’clock news simply won’t pay money to see more of the same on the big screen.  Too bad for Kathryn Bigelow, then, because with The Hurt Locker she has put together one potent piece of work.

Set in the current Iraq conflict The Hurt Locker tracks a three man unit through the final days of their military service.  The threesome has just over a month left, their task:  finding and defusing bombs.  It’s a job that demands precision and absolute trust, a job that has zero margin for error, but the balance of the group is shattered with the arrival of new team leader Will James.  It’s James’ job to actually defuse the bombs while the other pair offer support and protection but James has zero regard for protocol, zero regard for the safety of his team members, constantly rushing in to situations poorly prepared, riding from one wave of adrenaline to the next.

Bigelow has created one sterling bit of film here.  It is impeccably performed, keeps the tension ratcheted up to the highest possible extreme, and manages to capture both the scope of the conflict while remaining close and intimate.  It is also a surprisingly apolitical film.  If Bigelow has any opinions on the causes and course of the conflict she keeps those opinions resolutely off the screen, focusing instead purely on her central trio of characters and the effects the conflict is having on them.  When you’re on the ground with bullets flying, after all, you really don’t care about why you’re there, all that matters is surviving to see another day and she captures that feeling perfectly.  The stresses play on each of the three principles in different ways and Bigelow does a remarkable job of showcasing each of her three characters without ever sermonizing, without feeling the need to spell out their histories.  She simply lets them live and lets us observe.  By focusing on a bomb squad Bigelow has found not only the perfect image to capture the war in Iraq - where roadside bombs play such a hugely prominent role - but she also finds a squad of soldiers that everybody can sympathize with regardless of their political bent - however they got there all these men are trying to do is clear the country of weapons designed to kill and maim indiscriminately and it’s awfully hard to criticize them for that regardless of their behavior.

Bigelow shoots her film with such an incredibly high degree of technical skill and a willingness to put all of her characters at risk that it may well be the most immersive and compelling war experience caught on film since Ridley Scott;‘s Black Hawk Down but where that film was plagued with overwhelming “Go America!” rah rah, this film avoids that particular trap throughout.  Yes, it’s impossible not to feel a certain thrill through some of the action sequences and the story is certainly told from the American perspective but the film is also smart enough and honest enough both to capture the confusion and disorientation of its leads, the complexities of the situation and to show all involved as more than a little bit flawed.  After a solid two hours of subtle character work Bigelow can’t quite resist the big, overwrought moment of exposition at the end, just in case anyone out there has missed the point, and while the final sequence is heavy handed and unnecessary it is certainly not distracting enough to do any serious damage to the film as a whole. 

  • Digg This
  • Stumble It!
  • Reddit
 

Reader Comments

  1. James Dennis 09/10/2008 @ 12:38pm

    I can’t wait to see this film - I’m a big Kathryn Bigelow fan - posibly one of the most misunderstood directors. Point Break remains a technical landmark in action cinema in my book, not to mention a cracking script with just the right balance of action genre pastiche and full blown spectacle. Thankfully it’s been recognised in recent years as such - now the narrow minded critics who slated it as cliched have left the building. For a lady who’s built her career on directing male-focused genre movies from a female perspective, a war movie (I don’t count K19 as one) seems like fertile ground for a great Bigelow experience - think Peckinpah’s fascination with male bonding brought to a head in his WW2 movie Cross of Iron.

  2. MikeOutWest 09/11/2008 @ 3:12am

    Hooray! Glad to see Kathryn Bigelow making a big action movie again. Near Dark and Strange Days are two of my all time faves. Point Break paved the way for Parkour being so popular in movies with its central footchase. Strange Days has obviously dated not very well with it’s “futuristic” technology the characters and their relationships are well drawn and the ending is beautifully shot. Can’t wait to see this one.

  3. anton_es 09/11/2008 @ 4:06am

    bigelow shall reign supreme. r.scott is old hat. she should have replaced that old fa*t a long time ago (black hawk down was a abomination). Even kingdomOfheaven although decent was subpar compaired to old work by scott e.g. Alien. fyi i don’t like blade runner.

  4. James Dennis 09/11/2008 @ 6:19am

    I agree, Scott has started just churning out his films, he used to leave a good few years between and they were generally good - now he’s on almost 1 a year and it shows. He hasn’t done anything worth watching since Gladiator - and that doesn’t stand up that well now, despite being kind of seminal at the time.

  5. IEDParty 09/11/2008 @ 8:40am

    ” If Bigelow has any opinions on the causes and course of the conflict she keeps those opinions resolutely off the screen, focusing instead purely on her central trio of characters and the effects the conflict is having on them. “

    Aw. shucks.
    Too bad she ain’t speaking her mind. And why is witholding one’s view a
    pedigree for good media these days ? That’s odd. Last time I checked, it’s supposed to be all about expression.

  6. IEDParty 09/11/2008 @ 8:48am

    Oh, and there is nothing complex about the trampled sovereignity. That part is as clear as day. America invaded Iraq, just as Iraq invaded Kuwait. The supposed confusion refers to them wrapping their minds around owning up to that shit. Pretty tough thing to pull off from their position, I’d figure.

    I’ve yet to see a ’ morally and philosophically complex ’ movie about 9-11. From the ARAB perspective. And not the ’ Islam is peace, so please don’t hit me ’ one.

  7. Todd Brown 09/11/2008 @ 10:08am

    IED:  I don’t think ‘withholding an opinion’ necessarily IS good media, but Bigelow’s trying to make a different kind of film.  Just about any discussion of Iraq these days gets positively swamped by polemics as soon as anybody opens their mouths and she’s avoiding that by making a film that’s resolutely about people rather than politics.

Post Your Comments

You must be a registered member to post comments.

If you have a Twitch account, click here to sign in.

If you don't have a Twitch account, click here to register. Don't worry, it's free!

Stuff We Like

Shop at our affiliated sites and support Twitch while feeding your pop-culture addiction.

Our Latest Film & DVD Reviews

More Film & DVD Reviews...

Our Latest Interviews

More Interviews...

Recent Contests & Featured Content

Recent Comments