The American Spectator : The Hurt Locker

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The Hurt Locker

By James Bowman on 8.5.09 @ 6:02AM

The best of the Iraq War films, such as they are.

Before I went to see it, I had heard from more than one source that The Hurt Locker, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, was the best movie about Iraq yet made. This is true, though only because the competition is so pathetically feeble. It begins with an epigraph by Chris Hedges, ending with the assertion that "War is a drug." So it's a film à thèse then? Boy, is it ever! Its principal character, Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner), is an adrenalin-junkie of a bomb-disposal specialist whose crazy bravery is an expression only of his personal authenticity and no more social or philosophical cause, such as honor or idealism about bringing democracy to Iraq. I wondered if his name were not some arcane joke about the psychologist who wrote of "the moral equivalent of war," but here war has no moral or moral equivalent. It is just the most fun you can have with your bomb-proof suit on.

Well, it's a point of view. Naturally, James's crazy bravery does not endear the Sergeant to his fellow team-members whose fate is bound up with his. He is the point man, the one who takes the big risks, but the risks to the others, Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) are not inconsiderable either, and they are two guys who just want to do their job and get home in one piece. Their respect for James's bravery is leavened by something close to hatred for the risks he causes them to run. At one point, Sanborn hints that he might kill him before he gets him killed. "Are you serious about killing him?" asks Eldridge. Sanborn himself isn't sure if he is serious or not. When Eldridge is shot in the leg and breaks his femur in nine places, he rails at James as he is being medevaced out: "This is what happens when you shoot someone! We don't have to go out looking for trouble so you can get your f****** adrenalin fix, you f***!"

No, but the adrenalin fix makes Sgt. James an indisputably cool guy. Mr. Renner has the look of a star about him -- as others besides me have noticed -- since he does so well at portraying that mixture of courage and cool and calm independence from the rest of the military world whose uniform he wears that Hollywood has come to treasure far above mere patriotism or love or loyalty or any of the more social virtues. He is quietly contemptuous towards the brass as also towards any rationale for what the army might be doing in Iraq. He's a maverick who comes off way better for it than the rest of the American forces there, and this also gives him credibility with the Hollywood left. After a solitary face-off with a taxi driver who may or may not be a suicide bomber, he observes that "if he wasn't an insurgent, he sure as hell is now" -- a version of the liberal commonplace that our enemies wouldn't be enemies if we weren't fighting them.

The "name" actors in the picture are mere cameos and are either fools or are killed within a few minutes of being introduced to us -- which is another way to emphasize Mr. Renner's star qualities as well as to play the po mo game of teasing us with artifice. It ought to be a reminder that the movie's celebrated hallmarks of military authenticity -- like having to clean a dead-man's blood off his ammunition before our heroes can use it or the fine line between camaraderie and murderous resentment in their horseplay -- are equally calculated. Forty years ago, Mr. Renner's part would have been played by Steve McQueen and no questions asked. It's a movie, you see. It's true that The Hurt Locker is respectful to our soldiers and does not regard them as either dupes or victims, but it is still enmeshed in the Hollywood culture, and it has (albeit only implicitly) the other Iraq movies' assumption that their mission is pointless and self-defeating.

For all its authenticity, then, the movie is in this sense unreal, since it recognizes no reason for the things that its characters do except for the thrill of doing them. I know that this emphasis on the absurdity and the horror of war has a long and venerable history in the movies. Probably it is also true that a lot of real-life soldiers have learned from the movies not to be such a sap as to talk about what Frank Capra, in a different movie universe, used to call "Why We Fight." But to insist upon their existential authenticity to the exclusion of any sense of why the war is being fought in the first place is a distortion of reality in an entirely predictable direction. It's not just the senior officers here who are fools or knaves but, presumably, the whole command structure and the politicians back in Washington who have decided to send these men into action for no apparent reason. Now where have we heard of something like that before?

About the Author

James Bowman, our movie and culture critic, is a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is the author of Honor: A History and Media Madness: The Corruption of Our Political Culture, both published by Encounter Books.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (16) | Leave a comment

Denver Todd| 8.5.09 @ 8:04AM

I saw the movie. Entertaining, but somewhat pointless, and it ended abruptly.

Paul D| 8.5.09 @ 8:20AM

The New York Times, Time magazine and Newsweek (to name but a few) have been raving about this movie.

That's a big bunch of red flags waving me off as far as I'm concerned. Thanks for explaining why my hunch was correct.

Cheers, Paul

Seek| 8.5.09 @ 11:54AM

I have seen the movie and thought it was brilliant. I could care less what The New York Times, or for that matter James Bowman, thinks of it. Kathryn Bigelow ("Blue Steel," "Strange Days") has made a movie of intense moral naturalism from the perspective of men who know all too well that the next several seconds of their work could be their last. There is nothing inherently "anti-American" about such a frame of reference.

Enough yammering already about "the Hollywood Left." Go see the movie and make up your own mind.

Nick H| 8.5.09 @ 12:11PM

Hmmm. So we need the movie to actually spell it out for us why they're there? I saw it and loved it... and... wait for it... was actually able to make my own conclusion about *recognizing* the vale the bomb techs bring... without someone needing to guide me to there.

FinanceGuy| 8.5.09 @ 1:43PM

I have seen the movie also. I thought it was very well done. I must be missing something. I thought it presented a compelling picture of some of the risks/danger our soldiers have faced and are facing on our behalf. I came away with an even deeper appreciation for our men and women in uniform. It also revealed the personalities needed to confront these types of risk. Rather than being a movie about the broad war effort, it isolates one of the unique threats presented by IEDs and suicide bombers. It has a documentary feel about it as opposed to convential war plots. Hey-- I got an adrenaline rush from the intensity.

CW4 Home Again| 8.5.09 @ 3:35PM

Just got home from Iraq in May. The dirty little secret of war is that it's mostly boring most of the time. We're not all adrenaline junkies, and we're patriotic to a man (or woman, as the case may be), but when something is up, the adrenaline rush is definitely seductive. It's mysteriously linked to the 'black humor' so prevalent among soldiers. There was a place near Balad that we commonly referred to as "I Hate Americaville" because there seemed to be random gunfire every time we flew over it...

RicknPHX| 8.5.09 @ 4:03PM

Thank you, CW4.

CDB| 8.5.09 @ 8:47PM

I thought it was a pretty good film. My problem with it is more that it is just one vignette after another strung together with no larger plot. But I disagree that it makes the war appear pointless. It may make war appear random and does help establish that it is never clear who may be a threat vs. who is an innocent bystander, but that's the nature of the war we are fighting. Instead, in understated ways I think it makes it clear to any open minded viewer who the "good guys" are - Us, even when the US isn't always perfect. Compare SSG James trying to help a kid who sells DVDs with the example of the insurgents having used the body of a dead boy to hide a bomb. The actions of the terrorists are enough to make anyone realize who illegitimate their aims are - just look at the truck bomb scene and ask if it presents the war in a morally relative manner. Go see the movie, support those that are not putting out the commie line. (And the NYT may have liked the movie, but so did the Wall St. Journal and National Review).

Jo Bob| 8.5.09 @ 11:19PM

So it's a film à thèse then?

Using foringn to make yur point? What kind of week kneed amerikan are you?>>??>!!!!!
fUCK YOU TERRIST!

JT in SC| 8.6.09 @ 5:58PM

I want to see it. I am a Vet with a big collection of war movies. I plan to judge any merit of the film after I see it and care not a bit what the "expert" critics have to say. There are some who would spend a month dissecting the hidden meaning, merits or lack thereof in a porno flick!!

If you want to see it, lay down a few bucks and see it... If you enjoy it...BONUS... If you don't enjoy it then pick up a six pack and some pork rinds, sit on your couch and watch American Idol.

Larry M. Southwick| 8.6.09 @ 6:55PM

This review is OK, but there is a better one at NRO.
It has been noted that the James character was complex and his motivations were not explained in the movie. I think James is like many other soldiers in Iraq - they say thet are there (a) to keep the bad guys away from our shores (which was Bush's goal) and (b) to help the Iraqi people in a very difficult and important struggle.

I think James goes back because (c) the Army critically needs bomb specialists like him. He knows he is good at what he does, and that he makes a big difference by doing his job well.

As for his personal motivations, I believe insight can be provided from examples in the Vietnam War, especially by comparing the bomb defusal squads to crews of the helicopter gun ships. Two very good books on these valiant men in Vietnam, both written by William Brennan, are "Headhunters" and "Hunter-Killer Squadron". One might check out the old British made for TV series, "Danger, UXB".

So (d), I think James, like the Vietnam gunship crews, looked upon their activities as personal combats with the bad guys, that outsmarting them and negating their activities, especially within the bad guys own terms (i.e., no robots, defusing rather than blowing up the bombs), was a personal victory. It frustrates the bad guys' plans, it does it in a way that minimizes damage to Iraqi buildings and homes, and it proves to the bad guys that this soldier is superior to them.

It might be compared to a deadly chess game, one on one, dependent here not only upon icy nerves, steady hands and thorough knowledge of the mechanical and electronic devices involved, but also outwitting the bad guys best and most devious plans. An adrenalin rush follows each individual victory, not just from confronting instantaneous death face to face and surviving, but in knowing the bad guy was probably watching while the bomb defuser thoroughly out smarted him and dismantled his most deadly device.

So each successful bomb defusing becomes not only an actual victory, but a moral victory as well. Realizing that, the movie becomes extremely uplifting. He has taken the hard way, and with an iron will and unblinking determination been successful, and made it the right way.

A great movie, on any terms. The plot, if you really need one, is in making the viewer see the (d) above.
Larry M. Southwick
Cincinnati, Ohio

Debbie Blaine| 8.20.09 @ 9:42PM

This review is thought-provoking, but not convincing. I saw the movie tonight, and although I squirmed and teared up throughout, I was compelled to watch every second of it. I felt it was apolitical. There may be some left-wing subtext going on, but clearly the insurgents were the bad guys and the Americans and the Brits were the good guys, and they were fighting for us. I didn't need to be told what they were there for, and I don't imagine that a typical team of American soldiers rah rahs the flag every day to remind each other what they are fighting for.
I thought the movie was a brilliant study of the distinctly different personality types that choose to join the military and go into combat: the "sensitive yet brave" soldier, the "do it by the book" soldier, and the "maverick". They may have been stereotypes, but they were convincing. Focusing on the individual character traits of three sodiers working together as as a team of bomb specialists transended politics. Great movie- ignore the New York Times and go see it!

Kudzu| 8.23.09 @ 2:24PM

This movie is going to be a must have for a long time to come. I wanted to immediately watch it soon as I was done watching it (yes a bootleg copy in Afghanistan). Having been in Iraq, worked with EOD many times, I was having flashbacks just watching it. The most gripping scene for me was one of the shortest in the movie, when he's standing in the grocery store looking for cereal. Most people have no idea what kind of pressure simple decisions like can be after making life and death choices that affect you and people around you. Your brain shuts down and you see that in Mr. Renner's character that made it a very real movie for me.

Other points, there doesn't need to be a plot. The war, for most of us, does not have a plot. There are plans and schemes that happen above the tactical level that to be quite honest, most of us don't care. We're there, we want to do the job, and come home- wash, rinse, dry, repeat. Which is why when SFC James (Renner's character) is back in Iraq makes it all the more real for those of us in the Army. Its a cycle and yes we repeat it. We go home and we talk about our daily lives that we've had because we don't talk about with each other. Then you feel that pull and you want to go back.

Folks this movie will be a classic and in my eyes it already is. Mrs. Bigelow did a fantastic job as did all the actors in the movie, doubly so for Anthony Mackie's SGT Sanborn. He pinged a junior leader in the Army and went through every concieveable action that a Soldier can take, specifically the night scene wher SPC Eldridge is shot.

Again, thank you to the actors and staff of this movie. If you can put Soldiers back in Iraq in the first minute of a movie and and not make us feel like we're stupid or evil, you do a service greater than you can ever appreciate.

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Getting Hercules to Help You Poptropica

Hercules won’t help you until you have all five items from Zeus’ quest. Once you have the five items, bring them to Athena. Zeus will appear and steal them. The big jerk! Once this happens, talk to Athena and she will tell you that Hercules will help you. You’ll need to have the magic mirror from Aphrodite because Hercules doesn’t want to have to walk. He’s so lazy!
Getting the Hydra Scale poptropica

You can see how to do this in the videos, but basically you need to jump up when the Hydra is about to strike. He will rear one of his heads back to attack and his eyes will bulge out. poptropica
When this happens, jump up in the air and then try to land on top of his head. That head will get knocked out. When all five heads get knocked out, the Hydra will be asleep and you can click on him to get one of the scales. poptropica
I’ll have a full written walkthrough very soon, but in the meantime, here are some answers to some of the frequently asked questions about Mythology Island. Having trouble? Post a question in the comments and I’ll try to answer it!poptropica

Getting Hercules to Help You

Hercules won’t help you until you have all five items from Zeus’ quest. poptropica
Once you have the five items, bring them to Athena. Zeus will appear and steal them. The big jerk! Once this happens, talk to Athena and she will tell you that Hercules will help you.poptropica
. You’ll need to have the magic mirror from Aphrodite because Hercules doesn’t want to have to walk. He’s so lazy!
Getting the Hydra Scale

You can see how to do this in the videos, but basically you need to jump up when the Hydra is about to strike. He will rear one of his heads back to attack and his eyes will bulge out.Poptropica When this happens, jump up in the air and then try to land on top of his head. That head will get knocked out. When all five heads get knocked out, the Hydra will be asleep and you can click on him to get one of the scales. poptropica

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