"The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug."
The Hurt Locker "is not about explosions, but about hoping that none will happen. That sense of hope is crucial. When we merely want to see stuff blown up real good in a movie, that means the movie contains no one we give a damn about," said acclaimed film critic Roger Ebert.
director Kathryn Bigelow did what the great Alfred Hitchcock taught in his 1972's Frenzy. she sets up a deadly explosion at the opening of the movie, and keeps us fearing another. it's about imagination, what Ebert said about "The imagination of the audience is the most powerful weapon in the arsenal of any director of suspense. We see what will happen when a bomb explodes. Then we spend the movie fearing it will happen again."
Ebert further added, "Bigelow uses no phony suspense-generating mechanisms in this film. It is about personalities in terrible danger. The suspense is real, and it is earned." Hitchcock had said that when there’s a bomb under a table, and it explodes, that’s action. When we know the bomb is there, and the people at the table play cards, and it doesn’t explode, that’s suspense. The Hurt Locker perfected that.
the story is so spellbinding because of the characters, as soldiers and as men, their job, and its risks. Sgt James' job is "all the more remarkable because in certain scenes, it seems fairly certain that the bomb maker is standing in full view — on a balcony or in a window overlooking the street, and is as curious about his bomb as James is. Two professionals, working against each other."
there are no elaborate speeches in the film. it's not cluttered with dramatic but useless facts. it's probably one of the shortest scripts. but when it's over, we are pretty clear of what just hit us, and overwhelmed by what a blockbuster might not be able to achieve.
reasons for addiction:
1. bombs need to be defused
2. nobody does it better than Sgt James and he knows it
3. he needs the adrenaline to make him forget about his life outside service
he keeps a box of souvenirs from his missions. a box full of things that "almost killed me".
the subplot of the DVD-peddling Iraqi boy nicknamed Beckham reiterates that this is no ordinary war-bashing film. Sgt James is no superhero. he's just a bomb expert. as he attempts to make sense of the boy and an espionage plan, like many of us make sense of war, he fails. there is none. "outside his narrow assignment, he's useless."
The Hurt Locker received no assistance from the US Army to shoot a film about their own. Transformers, on the other hand, was taxpayer-bankrolled and had the backing of the Army, Air Force, Navy and Marines.
the screenwriter, Mark Boal, said, "I literally had a conversation with a guy who was telling me how realistically that movie is in its depiction of the military. I said to this senior military guy, 'What part of fighting aliens is realistic?' He replied, with a straight face, 'If we were going to fight aliens that's how we would do it'."
Ebert participated sarcastically, "Yes, that's how the Army would fight aliens, by playing a supporting role to a college kid, his girlfriend, his best buddy and his parents, who turn up in Egypt and save the day. And depending on the Egyptian military not noticing U.S. Army fighting with robots who are ripping apart the Great Pyramid."
