It feels strange to secretly recommend a production that has won six Oscars – including the Best Picture trophy. But if there’s one movie you can trust, it’s this one: “Deadly Commando – The Hurt Locker” by Kathryn Bigelow attracted only 67,336 people to German cinemas in 2009. And while later TV broadcasts of this war drama generated wider reach, it sadly still failed to earn mainstream hit status. Something needs to change – you can stream the highlight with VoD providers like Amazon:
Why is The Hurt Locker so little known? Perhaps it’s because of the topic: the war in Iraq was prominent in the news in the late 2000s and was mostly criticized in this country, while the American people thought otherwise. As a reminder, documentary filmmaker Michael Moore was once booed at the Oscars for his criticism of the war in Iraq – a situation unimaginable today that vividly symbolizes American patriotism in the 2000s.
To outsiders, Hollywood films on the subject often gave the impression that the subject was treated too casually. But it would be utterly wrong to see The Hurt Locker as a product of hooray militarism!
That’s what “The Hurt Locker” is about
In the middle of the war in Iraq: morale drops as the war seems endless. There are no breaks, all members of the US military constantly believe that their lives are in danger. However, the elite unit of the US Bomb Disposal Service takes a special risk – and one day it is turned upside down. Her supervisor Matt Thompson (Guy Pearce) dies on defusing. Although a successor is quickly found in Staff Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner), he completely disrupts order in the unit.
Because James is not only an absolute adrenaline junkie, but also anything but a team player. As a result, Sergeant JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) have a hard time operating under him, no matter how skilled he is at his job. Serious tensions arise that complicate day-to-day wartime and put the group in unnecessary danger during operations…
Bigelow creates a kind of anti-“Top Gun”
If you are one of those people who have so far ignored this film because the theme of the Iraq war does not appeal to you: jump over your shadow! Because “Deadly Command – The Hurt Locker” takes a critical look at the conflict and also has a general focus: As is typical of Bigelow, this war drama is a discussion of the male psyche filtered through her female, and therefore unaffected, spectacles.
Bigelow’s films regularly criticize male lifestyles and fragile egos driven by an unhealthy pressure to expect a supposedly “right” appearance as a man. Above all, overcompensated emotional insecurities are a recurring element in her work – also in “Deadly Command – The Hurt Locker”. This is particularly evident here in Bigelow’s approach to the character of William James.
On paper, nothing distinguishes him from quirky, risky military heroes like Tom Cruise’s Maverick in “Top Gun” or his numerous 1980s and 1990s action movie impersonators. film, however, do not glorify, but repeatedly serve as a source of tension. Consequently, the topless fooling around with colleagues in The Hurt Locker is also much more emotionally complex than the volleyball music video in Top Gun…
But Bigelow doesn’t just rest on the element of conflict and suspense: Rather than simply labeling James as an unsympathetic protagonist, the director also gets close to his vulnerable sides and explains why, despite his flaws, he deserves our sympathy . She records how his behavior not only harms those around him, but also his own mental well-being. For example, the director gives Marvel star Jeremy Renner space for one of the best performances of his career.
With haunted looks and a gruff smile, always on the verge of falling into a mournful expression, he brings to life the portrait of a man who masters the extreme situation of bomb disposal with mechanical protection – and furthermore constantly fails. . He can’t form a professional relationship, can’t maintain a relationship with his (ex) wife (played by Evangeline Lilly), and in the silence of his home he goes crazy. He needs the situational, existential dread – and he recognizes the vicious circle that this dependency brings.
Dense tension with four Marvel stars
One aspect that inevitably looks different today than it did in 2009 is, of course, the casting. Bigelow explained at the time that she deliberately threw unfamiliar faces to achieve a greater degree of unpredictability. How ironic that four of the stars of “The Hurt Locker” have now taken prominent roles in the greatest movie franchise of all time, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU).
Meanwhile, Renner and Anthony Mackie are world stars, Evangeline Lilly has expanded her fame far beyond the “Lost” fan base with the “Hobbit” trilogy and also thanks to Marvel (“Ant-Man” films), and Guy Pearce has also experienced it The Hurt Locker is experiencing a bit of a renaissance (with a Marvel detour in the form of Iron Man 3).
It’s hugely refreshing to see Renner, and especially Mackie, in a larger pre-Marvel role by today’s standards. Mackie was often only cast in small roles for “The First Avenger – Winter Soldier”, since his breakthrough his roles have often been based on his Marvel reputation. In “Deadly Command – The Hurt Locker”, on the other hand, he can develop freely.
But Bigelow’s staged approach to the Iraq war is even more impressive: She forgoes major gunfights and frenetic raids, instead showing him as a series of constant threats that are hard to spot and therefore all the more oppressive. The best example of this is the slowly unfolding, atmospherically dense innocuous scenes where you could cut through the air with a knife.
But also a central scene in which the heroes are watched by a sniper and have to wait enchanted until he leaves again, is of crushing tension. The concise, dirty look with nervously shaking HD camera images that catch every speck of dust in their path completes the overall impression of the film: Bigelow shows how even the most mundane detail can destroy perspective when under constant pressure.