The following is a review from Ronan Wright, who has started writing movie reviews over on the newly created Filmplicity.com. Obsessed with film, Ronan knows what he likes, and indeed what he doesn’t, this he’ll share. A rediscovered love of writing, and the blog was born. Various film festivals and Northern Ireland screenings and events are on the schedule. Add him on Twitter: @filmplicity.

Tagline
You’ll know when you’re in it.

Details
Dir. Kathryn Bigelow
Cast. Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Ralph Fiennes, Guy Peirce.
Rating:

The title of the film is inspired by Brian Turner’s poem of the same name: ‘Open the hurt locker and learn how rough men come hunting for souls’. The poem describes the brutal intimacy of close combat and the film faithfully translates the intimate experience of each moment, as it is. The film takes a pragmatic approach to the story it tells, forgetting the obvious politics, it sensitively acknowledges the characters and succintly portrays their delicate situation, leaving the audience to their own interpretations.

Each time Sgt William James (Jeremy Renner) and his unit leave the relative security of their base, they enter The Hurt Locker. Once inside, the only way out is to do the job that no-one wants. How do you do a job that may kill you at any moment? Sgts Jame’s solution, is to have fun with it. Approaching each new threat with unnerving assuredness, James lives from one bomb to the next with stone cold singlemindedness.

The Hurt Locker re-imagines the war movie as an a-political action thriller. It refuses to facilitate any political ping-pong regarding the social dimension of combat, preferring to personalise those for whom the action has immediate consequences. Bigelow doesn’t leave much room for comfort, exploding tired genre expectations, she puts the hurt on the audience, exploring the notion that those who live closest to death live fully alive.

The narrative encourages an intense encounter between audience and subject material. The space between each set piece is not merely a bridge between the dialogue and the action, but a visceral commentary on the no-man’s land between bomb and bang, where courage and fear are mingled with excited anticipation, on both sides of the screen.

The bold discovery of fresh new ground, in familiar territory, with an accomplished turn by Jeremy Renner in a role that re-constructs common ideas concerning the reasons for going to war. In a society that holds its governments responsible for the war that is defining a young generation, Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow have, with measured sensitivity, delivered an entertaining war movie which provides an important reminder that the decision to go to war is, ultimately, a personal one.

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