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By James Rocchi
Special to MSN Movies
In a summer loaded with fighting robots and self-healing mutants, the best
action movie of the lot isn't about superscience or superhumans, but
all-too-mortal military men who, if they make a mistake, die -- for real,
forever, playing out scenes and scenarios that are happening right now in the
real world. Shot by director Kathryn Bigelow ("Near Dark," "Point Break"), "The Hurt Locker" follows a military explosives ordinance
demolition (EOD) team as it defuses bombs in Iraq. Bigelow's shooting style
turns every one of the film's big set-pieces into an excruciating nail-biter,
where the line between crazy and dead is crossed as simply as cutting the wrong
wire or making the wrong decision. The film's lead soldier is played by Jeremy Renner as a nervy mess of cool calm, constantly on
the edge where his impulsive bravado and reckless technique might stop working;
his fellow team members, Brian Geraghty and Anthony Mackie aren't sure about his methods, especially
during a scene in which the two seriously contemplate killing Renner before he
can get them killed.
Much like one of the bombs the team faces, "The Hurt Locker" has had a slow
fuse, debuting to raves at the Venice and Toronto film festivals last September,
counting down to this July's theatrical release. The strategy has paid off: Many
are calling "The Hurt Locker" a possible Oscar contender, and the film is
earning rave reviews (along with "Up," the best of the year) for its mix of art and
adrenaline, apolitical suspense and unblinking commentary. We spoke with Bigelow
and her co-writer, Mark Boal, whose work as an embedded journalist alongside
real EOD teams in Iraq in 2004 led to the film.
MSN Movies: Did you have any shape to the script before you went to
write it, or was it just: "We want to write about these EOD Army
experts?"
Kathryn Bigelow: Well, the shape evolved in that we really
wanted to identify a character, the character of somebody who basically has the
world's most dangerous job for a living. What is his psychology? What does it
take to do that for 12, 13 times a day? So it became a real character piece,
characters that define themselves through activity or action. Hence, you have
these real-time set pieces that define and circumscribe the job and, in so
doing, circumscribe the character. I had actually made a miniseries out of an
article that [Boal] wrote called "Jailbait," that he wrote for Playboy. That's
how we got to know each other, and after that, he said, "I'm going over to Iraq
to do this embed," and I was fascinated. He'd send me these e-mails from
Baghdad, and it was pretty harrowing, and then when he came back, he downloaded
and almost immediately -- I'd say within a week -- started writing the script.
Was producing the film yourself -- where there was no studio
executive saying, "There has to be a showdown with the master bomber!" -- a good
way to protect the film?
Kathryn Bigelow: It was, in this case, an excellent way. (Story Continues On Next Page...) |
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