The Hurt Locker (2009)

The Hurt Locker (2009)

In director Kathryn Bigelow's (and Voltage Pictures') fact-based, but fictional character study and dramatic action thriller about the defusement and detonation of dangerous IEDs, it was based upon the actual experiences of freelance journalist and screenwriter/producer Mark Boal who was embedded for two weeks with Army EOD soldiers in 2004 in the Middle East.

This low-budget, action-oriented war-thriller and drama was a major award-nominee and winner. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards, including Best Original Musical Score, Best Actor (Jeremy Renner), and Best Cinematography (Barry Ackroyd), and received six Oscars: Best Picture, Best Director (Kathryn Bigelow), Best Original Screenplay (Mark Boal), Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Film Editing. With her win, Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Director. With a budget of 15ドル million, the film grossed revenues of 17ドル million (domestic) and 49ドル.3 million (worldwide).

The film featured stressful and tense series of war scenes/set-pieces experienced by an elite group of three bomb-squad specialists or EOD bomb defusers (Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal Squad) in Bravo Company (cognizant of a 39-day countdown until their home-leave deployment-rotation). [Note: A "hurt locker" referred to the destination of explosion victims.]

• in the film's opening, team leader SSG Matt Thompson (Guy Pearce), wearing a bulky Kevlar suit, died during a failed defusement of a dangerous IED (improvised explosive devices) bomb with a robotic device in the rubble and garbage-strewn streets of Bagdad in 2004 Iraq; the group of soldiers was threatened with sniper fire as the bomb was set off by a cellphone from a marketplace butcher shop
• the fears and difficulty of their mission were expressed by the two other team members of the 3-member team, who had 39 more days on their deployment:
  • Sgt. J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), a level-headed, by-the-book African-American
  • Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), who was nervously insecure, fearful and pessimistic:
    • "Pretty much the bottom line is, if you're in Iraq, you're dead"
• the two were uncomfortable accepting Thompson's replacement - newcomer and risk-taker renegade Army Staff Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner); Sanborn called him "a redneck piece of trailer trash"
• in scene after scene, James displayed bravado, indifference to harm, recklessness and fearlessness

1. the Sgt. activated a flare, obscuring everyone's visibility, and drew his pistol on a suspected Iraqi-haji cab driver during a stand-off while commanding him to back up and get out of the car ("Where are you goin'?...You wanna back up?...You wanna get back?") - and then after clipping the wires to one bomb detonator, he found that it was attached to seven others buried nearby; he proceeded to dismantle all of them, before they could be triggered by an onlooking local
2. Sgt. James disregarded orders when he attempted to defuse bombs in an illegally-parked, torched car near an evacuated UN building; he removed his protective helmet and gear ("If I'm gonna die, I wanna die comfortable") - and also bravely (but against orders) threw away his headset while searching to dismantle the triggering mechanism and defuse the bombs
   
3. in another sequence during a tense stake-out in the hot desert sun when aiding a party of British army private contractors and mercenaries (including Ralph Fiennes), he was caught in an ambush by an insurgent sniper (Nader Tarawneh) who was using a scope to zero in on his targets; although James fumbled unwrapping a juice pack and straw to give a drink to dehydrated partner Sgt. Sanborn, the two were able to kill the four attackers
4. he also unsuccessfully attempted to break the bolts of locks holding strapped explosives with a timer to an innocent Arabic family man's (Suhail Dabbach) waist; he reluctantly abandoned the helpless man, before the vest exploded

• the curious Colonel Reed (David Morse) asked how many bombs "wild man" James had disarmed (he was told 873) - and he responded with surprise: "That's just hot s--t"; his follow-up question was about the best way to disarm a bomb, to which James dryly replied:
  • "The way you don't die, sir"
• the three comrades, after a tense day, were in their compound swigging alcohol, punching each other, and wrestling (and discovering that James kept souvenirs of his bomb dismantlings and components under his bed):
  • "This box is fuII of stuff that aImost kiIIed me...You know, I just think it's reaIIy interesting to hoId something in your hand that couId have kiIIed anyone"

• Eldridge was seriously wounded with a gunshot (from James' gunfire) shattering his femur during an unnecessary nighttime mission; he expressed his anger at James for his injury as he was airlifted for medical treatment:
  • "We didn't have to go out looking for trouble to get your f--king adrenaline fix, you f--k!"
• the effects of the stressful war for James were also felt on the homefront; in the film's conclusion during Bravo Company's home-leave, James visited with his ex-wife Connie James (Evangeline Lilly) and their infant son; he felt and sensed extreme disorientation when confronted by so many choices of frozen pizza and boxed cereal in a US supermarket; while speaking to his son, James admitted his true love (the thrill of dismantling bombs):
  • "...the older you get, the fewer things you really love, and by the time you get to my age, maybe it's only one or two things. With me, I think it's one"
• he was deployed for another year-long tour of duty with Delta Company