#8: The Hurt Locker
Over the last couple of days there has been a small back-and-forth on The Huffington Post about the accuracy of The Hurt Locker. One vet says its too fictionalized to be good, another takes the opposite view.
At the risk of being inconsistent, as I've surely slammed movies in the past for being unrealistic and I'm sure I will again, I think the larger truths that The Hurt Locker explores are more important than whether the details are perfect. Granted, I've also said good movies get the details right*, but I since the intricacies of military conduct are beyond my ken anyway, I can't personally get hung-up on the little errors.
* From my Avatar review: "Great movies get the details right. Mediocre movies get details wrong and people like me get hung up on them."
As for the movie...
There's a social psychology principle that my old psych professor called "The Muhammad Ali Effect," though I'm not sure this is the accepted term within the actual scientific community. What it describes is the logical idea that we judge our self-worth with disproportionate weight toward what we're good at. That is, Muhammad Ali decided that being a good boxer was really important and derived a legendary amount of confidence from this assertion. I, on the other hand, despite being a pretty poor boxer, keep my self-esteem intact, at least as it relates to my lack of boxing skill. Pretty obvious stuff. Basically, whatever we're good at is what we value.
The Hurt Locker is about this very concept. It stars Jeremy Renner as SFC William James, a man who is basically the Muhammad Ali of bomb-diffusing. This leads to two overarching themes, as far as I see it: (1.) with his Ali-esque brashness, James disregards the traditional methods of doing many things, often to the detriment of those around him; and (2.) with his Ali-esque skill, little else in his life offers him the thrill and self-worth that comes with diffusing bombs. This second element reminds me a lot of Generation Kill's hero, Iceman Colbert, though Colbert is the consummate professional where James is the exact opposite in most ways.
The film makes no attempt to deceive the audience from what it will ultimately be about, opening with journalist Chris Hedge's quote: "The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug." To couple this feeling, the aliveness that comes with being inches from death, with the desire to be special, to be truly great at something, creates an addict of the worst kind in Renner's character. Not that James is a bad person, merely that, like an addict, he will do nearly unforgivable things to get what he wants.
This film is mostly, a character study of James and his character is dissected through his inevitable relationship with his team, as well as through an unpredictable relationship with an Iraqi boy. As a result and, again maybe a little like Generation Kill, the movie doesn't follow a typical arc. Instead, it's more episodic, though not in a bad way and not without some build. Nevertheless, the movie is as tense and suspenseful as any movie released this year*; a bomb may, almost literally, go off at any time. At yet, it exhibits a great deal of patience as well, particularly exemplified in an all-day stand-off with Iraqi "snipers" off in the distance, each group waiting for the other to betray its position and give the opponents a clear shot.
* The upcoming #6 its main competition on this front.
My only real critique of the film, and the reason it isn't ranked higher, is that (and this is a note that I would hate to get as a filmmaker because it's so vague) it didn't really stay with me. I thought it was well-executed and well-directed (in this arena Kathryn Bigelow mops the floor with her ex-hubby James Cameron) but I didn't feel like I could relate to it; I didn't imagine myself in this war. One of things I really enjoyed about Generation Kill (and this is an advantage of having seven hours instead of two) was that there were so many characters that I actually spent time wondering how I would fit into this platoon, or, as was more often the case, how I would behave if I were the journalist tagging along. In Hurt Locker, though there is a fresh-faced twenty-something in James' group, I didn't really identify with him as he was more what I believed a typical solider to be. Again, this is no reason to criticize a film, this is simply why such a precise movie only makes it in at #8, though it is an honor just to be nominated.
If my #1 movie is destined to lose [clue alert] in the Best Picture and Best Director categories, though I'm still holding out hope, I would like to see Hurt Locker and Bigelow win something.* Also, if you care to try and predict what the rest of my top 10 is, remember that I said half of my ten were the Academy's ten, and through three films, one has been one that is nominated. That means four of my final seven are Oscar possibilities.
* I didn't used to care about the Oscars and I would imagine many of my friends and family couldn't recall many instances of me ever talking about them when I lived back East, but when writing about movies and ascribing them value, it seems to be difficult not to compare my tastes to that of the most prestigious film awards in the world. Either that or the non-perspectived, screen-worshipping LA lifestyle has already sapped my brain.
Back soon with #7.
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