The Hurt Locker by Kathryn Bigelow

Plot: Iraq. Forced to play a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse in the chaos of war, an elite Army bomb squad unit must come together in a city where everyone is a potential enemy and every object could be a deadly bomb.



The Hurt Locker is the latest film of Kathryn Bigelow. It was released in 2008 in the US but only arrived a few weeks ago in France.
The Hurt Locker tells us the story of an elite Army bomb squad unit in present-day Iraq, named the Bravo Company. The Bravo Company is supposed to go back to the US 40 days later, after a year in Iraq. But before that, the members of the unit have to deal with extreme urban war and guerilla situations, one day after the other. When the movie begins, the Bravo Company just lost its leader, Staff Sgt Matthew Thompson. As the unit is composed of only three soldiers, this death is a very traumatic event to overcome for the two soldiers still alive. Moreover, they also have to deal with their new leader, Staff Sgt James Will, who doesn't really know what the word "safety" means. This new leader is a "wild-man", a cow-boy, for whom no situation is dangerous enough. But the unit has to work as a team in order to be efficient, so its members will have to deal with each other, to avoid dying on the battlefield.
The Hurt Locker is a film filled with tension, suspense, and intensity. The way it is shot is very nervous, and numerous short sequences also gradually make you nervous. Very quickly you'll start asking yourself what's coming next... What's coming next ?
The plot is well constructed, for - and that's really interesting - The Hurt Locker is not a true war movie. I have the impression that it's more like a drama set in the context of a war, in this case the war in Iraq. The characters, despite being soldiers, are also very human, very touching, for their mission is about to end, and none of them wants to die just a few days before going back home.
The main character, James Will, is very complex. At first sight you would say he's just a cow-boy, a man who doesn't care about his life and about the lives of his men. But you discover very quickly that there's more than that. He systematically puts himself in a situation of great danger, by trying to deactivate a bomb that could explode and kill him instantly. But why does he do that ? He could die everyday, and each day he starts again, as if there were no past and no future.
Actually, James Will is a junkie. But not a junkie craving for a fix of heroin, no, he's a junkie who wants his daily shot of adrenalin. And the best way for him to get it is to deactivate bombs in Iraq. As he says to his baby boy in the film, "very quickly there will be less and less things you'll like to do. And for your daddy there's only one."
In a nutshell, The Hurt Locker is a very good movie, and a very good surprise. It is full of tension and suspense from the beginning to the end, but it's also filled with humanity and moments of weakness. I think the fact that the director is a woman is the reason why it is more touching. I think it's easier for her to communicate feelings than it would be for a man, who would have done a basic war-movie. This one is pretty cool and very interesting.


Matthieu Vatry