Review: ‘The Hurt Locker’ – Melissa’s Take

Oh, man… There is no easy way to go about telling America that I disliked a movie with American Soldiers as the main characters. I didn’t realize that there is a way to make a war that has been fought in our lifetime look positively boring and ridiculous. I am sure there are tons of stories from the men and women that have served and/or are serving overseas that are way more inspiring, real, and worthy of the screen-time.

The Hurt Locker follows Staff Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner), Sergeant JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), three elite soldiers in Iraq that are part of a special bomb unit. The three men, especially Staff Sergeant William James, have one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. They have to find and disable bombs, while also keeping their eyes peeled for suspects that might be trying to detonate them while the soldiers are working on them. As if their job isn’t dangerous enough, Staff Sergeant William James comes in after their former leader was brutally blown up, and is completely reckless. He does things his own way, doesn’t listen to orders, and jeopardizes the safety of his team. Now it’s a struggle of not only getting out alive, but controlling their new leader so that they make it home.

One of the problems I have is that the characters are very dry. The characters have very little development other than being soldiers in the same place, at the same time. If you want your audience to empathize with your characters, then you have to introduce them to each other. They give you very little personal information about the three soldiers that they are following. Sure, we know how they react to one another, and that they are brave, and even that Staff Sergeant William James has a family, but that is as far as they delve into the characters. I get that they are scared, every rational human being would be terrified, but tell me where the character grew up, how they got to where they are, and what kind of person they are.

It really doesn’t help that I am not a big Jeremy Renner fan either. He made a horrible Jeffrey Dahmer in Dahmer, being in an awesome zombie movie didn’t help him (28 Weeks Later), and even the naughty sheriff in Pink’s Trouble video didn’t earn him cool points in my book. Guess there were no real bonus points to be earned unless this movie was stellar. Brian Geraghty is the only one who gets some street cred for Jarhead, but that is quickly destroyed by his role in Lindsay Lohan’s I Know Who Killed Me. Ohh… tough break! Even the explosions didn’t add excitement to this movie, which for a movie involving a bomb squad didn’t have any cool ones.

Just to clarify… I am not saying that I do not like war films, or that I do not appreciate the men and women fighting for our country. I do however, think that this film is going to be given way to much credit and praise just because of its content rather than its cinematic value.