What I liked and didn’t like about The Hurt Locker

For starters, I liked that a fairly straightforward war movie about Iraq beat out the peacenik Avatar, with its anti-technology undertones and romantic notions about noble savages.

I also appreciated The Hurt Locker’s (mostly) apolitical nature. Though it wasn’t anti-Iraq war, it wasn’t pro-war either. It simply told a good story about one aspect of war, the life of bomb disposal techs. War is a topic so rich in interesting themes, why does Hollywood so often restrict itself to one narrow aspect – the morality of war?

But the thing I enjoyed most about it was the very thing that many actual Iraq veterans hated - particularly if they were bomb disposal techs: the lead character, the reckless Sgt. Bill James. I liked his character because he is the archetypal warrior who loves to fight. Normally if Hollywood portrays a war hero, he is the civilized, reluctant warrior, like Tom Hank’s character, Capt. John Miller, in Saving Private Ryan, who dreamed of getting back to his hammock where he can quietly read Emerson. While there have been plenty of effective gentleman-warriors in the past, such as Robert E. Lee and George Washington, the type of combatant that I personally find most interesting is the ugly warrior, the man who lives for war and is bored by peace. These men go to war because they like to fight. At the end of The Hurt Locker, Sgt. Bill James is shown back in civilian life with his family, looking out of place and wishing he were back in Iraq. In peace, we civilians find this sort of man uncouth, uncivilized and more than a little frightening, but when faced with a crisis we also find him indispensable. In history, he is Ariel Sharon, George Patton, Pappy Boyington, Bomber Harris, Curtis LeMay, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Horatio Nelson, Robert Clive, Oliver Cromwell and the Black Prince. In film history, he is Gen. Buck Turgidson in Dr. Strangelove, the title role in Patton and Col. Kilgore in Apocalypse Now – all memorable movie characters because they mirror our romantic warrior ideal.

Getting back to The Hurt Locker, Iraq veterans did not like Sgt. Bill James because he does not act like a modern soldier. In modern war, a reliable team player is more valued than a risk-taking individualist; accomplishing the mission while getting the team back safely is more important to defense departments than fulfilling romantic dreams. In The Hurt Locker, James’ recklessness puts his team in unnecessary danger several times, but it is all worth it for James because he revels in the action.

In the book, Carnage and Culture, classicist and military historian Victor Davis Hanson draws a distinction that I was unaware of prior to reading it - the distinction between a soldier and a warrior. Hanson contends that what differentiates modern western warfare is that it is fought by soldiers whose defining virtues are team spirit, discipline, duty, reliability and calmness. In contrast, warrior virtues are individualism, righteous anger, risk taking, élan and the lust for glory. Warriors belong in personal combat, like the kind practiced by medieval knights. They do not belong on today’s battlefield where contests are decided by teams not individuals.  

But if a war film can inspire this sort of discussion about the nature of warfare, then I think it is a good sign that it has something interesting to say about the topic.

Unfortunately there was one troubling scene, one that didn’t really fit into the movie as a whole. It was the one where James’ bomb disposal team comes across a stranded group of British ‘contractors’. The ‘contractors’ had just captured a couple of Saddam’s henchmen important enough to be featured on that famous deck of cards. While James’ team is helping them fix their Toyota SUV, they come under insurgent attack. At this point, the contractors freeze in panic and require James (a former Ranger) and his two men (regular GI’s) to get them out of trouble. This is absurd. The only people private security firms hire are ex-special forces or former members of other elite units. If they were Brits, that means they are either SAS or Royal Marines, probably SAS. The SAS are the best commandos in the world. To employ a hockey analogy, this would be like pitting a couple of house league players led by a former Toronto Marlie against a bunch of NHL stars and expecting the stars to lose. The only reason for this scene was to vent Hollywood’s hatred of contracting firms such as Blackwater. 

But other than that annoying detail, it was an eminently watchable war film, not as good as Blackhawk Down, Rules of Engagement or the Band of Brothers series, but still quite good. 

Comments

[WiseGuy]

The coolest thing was Kathryn Bigelow, the Director of the film, when being awarded the Dest Director award at the Academy Awards, she thanked the troops! Hollywood didn't expect that one.

So when she was called up again to accept the award for Best Picture, she thanked the troops again!