The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker

2008

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Writer: Mark Boal

131 Minutes

 

Like many of us, The Hurt Locker came into our lives like a surprise birthday party. It was a film that was passed around at parties, bars, and independent festivals worldwide.

“Did you see the Hurt Locker? Oh God, it will blow your mind.”

It shocked us, pushed us, and gripped our attention for over two hours, while three bomb experts carried out day-to-day actions in Iraq. In doing so, it won the Academy awards from directing, editing, sound, sound editing, writing, and best picture.

The scene above is when Sergeant First Class William James (Jeremy Renner) has returned home from battle and goes grocery shopping with his lover and child. He wheels his child to the cereal isle and has to choose what kind of cereal to buy. A simply task, but James faces an amazingly difficult decision: what is the best cereal?

James can’t decide.

This scene comes after countless bombs defused, intense sniper fire, and effortless life-or-death decision making, yet James cannot choose what breakfast food to eat. There are too many choices here. What is good? What is bad? Is this right? Is this wrong?

This extreme long shot, displaying all the chooses, amplifies that difficulties soldiers face when returning home. They gage of normalcy is lost in the year plus they spend in the desert and when they are return home, the simplicity of life is stolen.

Brigadier General (Ret) Stephen N. Xenakis, M.D. wrote “These soldiers say that they are just not the same. They don't know why, but they feel changed, and the important stuff around them has changed. Combat will do that to almost anyone - everyone is changed, for better or worse, and sometimes both better and worse. These soldiers say that they are just not the same. They don't know why, but they feel changed, and the important stuff around them has changed.”

And though the Hurt Locker’s message of “what do you love…” explained by James to his son that eventually you’ll just love on thing, this scene is vital to show what’s important. For James, it’s war. This explains why he doesn’t want to make dinner with his lover, nor grocery shop for cereal. None of that matters.

In the end, the Chris Hedges quote comes full circle, “the rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug.” For this, James another 365 days is his drug.