Film File - The Hurt Locker

Winner of last year's Venice Film Festival Grand Prize, 'The Hurt Locker' is a riveting portrait of what must surely be one of the world's most dangerous jobs - the bomb squad technicians who volunteer to challenge the odds and save lives in one of the world's most dangerous places. Three members of the US Army's elite Explosive Ordnance Disposal squad battle insurgents and each other as they search for and disarm a wave of roadside devices on the streets of Baghdad to try and make the city a safer place for Iraqis and Americans alike. It's a game where the margin of error is zero - if you're out a centimetre, the result is a one-way trip to 'the hurt locker'. In the summer of 2004, Sergeant JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) of Bravo Company are at the volatile centre of the war, part of a small force specifically trained to handle the homemade bombs, or improvised explosive devices (IEDs), that account for more than half of American hostile deaths and have killed thousands of Iraqis. The job, a high-pressure, high-stakes assignment, which soldiers volunteer for, requires a calm intelligence that leaves no room for mistakes, as they learn when they lose their team leader on a routine mission. When Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner) takes over the team, Sanborn and Eldridge are shocked by what seems like his reckless disregard for military protocol and basic safety measures. Is he a reckless war cowboy, or a consummate professional who has honed his esoteric craft to high-wire precision? The men have only 38 days left in their tour of duty, but with each new mission comes another deadly encounter, and as James blurs the line between bravery and bravado, it seems only a matter of time before disaster strikes. In 2004, journalist Mark Boal spent several weeks embedded with a US Army bomb squad operating in Baghdad, following its movements and getting inside the heads of the men living in a world where one false move means instant death. His first-hand observations became the inspiration for 'The Hurt Locker', and the role in which coalition bomb squads have played an often under-reported part in the war. "What many people don't know is that although Baghdad was horrifically dangerous in those years, it could have been a lot worse," Boal says. "On any given day, for every bomb that exploded in the city, there were probably 10 or 15 that didn't detonate because of a few, secretive bomb squads that were in theatre." Given that the conflict in Iraq has now been ongoing for over a decade, there has been a marked absence of good films about it. In an arena where movies like 'In The Valley Of Elah' and 'Stop-Loss' barely registered on the box office radar, 'The Hurt Locker' is the first to make an impact. Director Kathryn Bigelow, famous for the robbing surfers flick 'Point Break' many years ago, has delivered an experience where the audience are right there with the bomb disposal operatives through every screamingly tense clip of the wire snips that may spell disaster. Presenting a portrait of war life where hours of inactivity are punctuated with frequent occasions of razor-sharp terror, she fashions a fair visual explanation of the opening quote - "War is a drug." For those whose lives are daily placed in harm's way with the ultimate option to survive or die, the profound effects of war and its aftermath are better outlined than in any film of recent times. 'The Hurt Locker' has done serious business in the US - but probably not so much down to any 'us versus them' theme, but rather due to its remarkable recreation of that deadly work that bomb disposal really is. Where 'Apocalypse Now' made the jungles of Vietnam come alive in blood-drenched splendour, 'The Hurt Locker' tells a tale of modern warfare like few others have managed. Nailbiting stuff.