Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker barely allows you to breathe in the very best way. Jeff's earlier contention that the protagonists are after an unconventional monster is dead-on. It doesn't come after them, but lies in wait for them to incite their own destruction, diffuse the danger, or be too little, too late. Summit is right to have waited to release the film in June this year. The Hurt Locker is the first great film of 2009, and would have been among the great of '08 had it been released then.
Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow, screenwriter Mark Boal, actor Brian Geraghty (plays specialist Eldridge)
There are transcendent film experiences, and there are the rare among those where at the end, you quietly say "Jesus" to yourself under your breath and then turn to a friend next to you who caps it with "Christ". The only reason anyone gets out of their seat during the credits is that they have to rush the line outside for a Spike Lee movie showing next in the same theater (Passing Strange).
Screenwriter Mark Boal was an embedded reporter in 2004 with an EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) squad, the guys who diffuse IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices). It's important to note the difference, as both are mentioned in the film. Most people out there are familiar with the latter term, but not the former.
The film opens with a quote that equates war to a drug. Jeremy Renner's Staff Sergeant James is the thrill junkie, the guy who "suits up" for the high. Whether he likes it or not, he's wrapped up in it so tightly that there's more of it in him than whoever he was beforehand. He's on the verge of going into malfunctioning Robocop mode. Later in the film you question how grounded any sequence he's in without his teammates is in the real world.
As many classics do, there are thematic echoes (some intended, but most likely not) of other great films. The diffusion sequences demand rapt attention just as much as the robbery sequence in Rififi, sans the silence. Good guy Quint at AICN is right comparing Locker to Wages of Fear. During one sequence where US and UK soldiers are pinned down in the open with a broken down vehicle, I couldn't help but think of Zoltan Korda's Sahara (1943), starring Humphrey Bogart.
The poster lie of that film was:
A mighty story of adventure, courage and glory in the desert!...tender human emotion...triumphant action...matchless thrills...a memorable entertainment experience!
Summit PR folks, get your copy/paste ready, because Columbia did your work for you 66 years ago. Another tagline of Sahara's, "Their story can now be told!" also rings true here.
They aren't out of the woods just yet on the publicity end. From now until opening in late June, it's going to take the precision of an EOD tech to make sure Joe Public gets that this is a thrilling action powder keg. I'd recommend sneaking it in military communities...everyone chain emails everyone these days.
Q&A moderator James "Transgressive" Rocchi (who did a bang-up job), Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow, screenwriter Mark Boal, actor Brian Geraghty
During the post-show Q&A moderated by the audience shirt-identifying James Rocchi ("the gentleman in the checkered shirt!"), director Bigelow noted the major distinction of this conflict. "It's a war of bombs," she said, "and these guys have the most dangerous job in the world." That would almost makes a perfect tagline. I would only edit it as "the most dangerous job in the most dangerous place in the world." Looks good on a poster, looks good in white text over black.
The requisite "how will your film do when so many other Iraq movies have failed" question was asked, and I almost burst out to tell the guy to go fuck himself. It was like he was set on auto-pilot to ask that regardless of the movie he'd just seen. Did he miss that The Hurt Locker hides the brussel sprouts in the macaroni and cheese?
Regardless of political perspective, anyone walking in to this movie will have their perceptions of the war and those involved in it on the ground shaken. There were actual EOD techs in the audience on Tuesday night, one of whom asked, "What made you want to focus on us EOD techs?"
There was a sound in his voice that said, "we've felt utterly ignored to this point, beyond forgotten." They take out the most hazardous waste in the world and are as isolated and cast away as WALL-E robots, while the rest of us Twitter it up on our Laptop-o-Loungers and order our dinner over the internet.
That twinge in his voice choked me up more than a bit. I tried to grab a couple words with him, and his short review was "I didn't think anyone would ever do this or do it well. I liked how honest it was."
Bigelow shot something like 200 hours of raw footage that was carved, sculpted, and scalpel-honed down to two hours that doesn't feel like 131 minutes. The Hurt Locker subtly, forcefully engages your active viewing engine and doesn't let such that frankly, I could have rolled with even more of it. I have high hopes for a big pile of extended/deleted scenes on the DVD.
Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow, screenwriter Mark Boal at the Austin Hilton
I also got the chance to grab a few minutes with Kathryn and Mark which you can listen to here. We talk about a couple things, but most interesting to our readership, Mark Boal tells Jeffrey Wells to stick something in his pipe and smoke it.
When asked, Mark (who wrote In the Valley of Elah's story) confided that he has a third story he wants to have told. He wouldn't (couldn't, understandably) go into detail. With a one-two pedigree like this, whoever has that script on their desk: do yourself a favor and greenlight it, fund it, make this happen.