The Hurt Locker

Movie: The Hurt Locker

I saw it on: July 12 and August 6, 2009

Cast: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Nrian Geraghty, Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes, David Morse, Evangeline Lilly

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Genre: War Drama

Synopsis: In Iraq, the U.S. Army uses three-man teams as Emergency Ordinance Disposal units.  These units are called in whenever unexploded bombs are found.  One of them gets to do the actual disabling of the bomb while the others stand guard to keep civilians away – but also to watch for insurgents who might be trying to trigger the bomb.  Staff Sergeant Williams (Jeremy Renner) is the replacement disposal expert (with 700+ de-fused bombs to his credit) is brought in to replace a now-dead former team member.

The movie follows the unit for the last 39 days of its deployment.  To say that their job is stressful is like saying that Mount Everest is a big hill.  Defusing these bombs would be incredibly stressful by itself, but this guy has to war a full bomb suit – and it gets rather hot in Baghdad – and has to be constantly worrying about people running up and setting of the bomb he is working on.

My two cents: The only place I have seen Jeremy Renner was on the all-too-quickly-cancelled TV series The Unusuals.  I liked him in that and I really liked him in this movie.  His character is definitely the focus of the movie.  I was afraid that this was going to be an overly bloody  movie.  While there is violence and blood, I thought it was a reasonable amount and not over-done

I saw this movie twice and loved it both times.  I think that it is important for people to see movies like this every year or two to reinforce just what kind of hell our troops are living in over in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Regardless of your politics, this movie can’t help but give you some appreciation for the conditions our troops work in.  I am in awe that they are able to get through s single tour with their sanity intact, much less multiple tours of duty.