Thursday 27 June 2013

Freeview (UK) film of the day : thursday 27th of June



The Hurt Locker (2008 125min.) [Film4 9.00pm &+1]

Oscar-winning thriller starring Jeremy Renner. A US Army bomb-disposal team working out the last 38 days of their tour in Iraq are joined by Staff Sgt William James, whose unorthodox methods make him initially unpopular with his colleagues.

The film follows them as the team as go about their potentially deadly missions and uses a variety of techniques (both visual and verbal) to show the enormous pressure that they work under on a daily basis and the lengths that they go to in order to attempt to relax at the end of the day.

The bomb disposal scenes themselves are very well done; there's a real sense of tension and the nearness of death about them. A long central scene away from Baghdad points up the constant threat to their lives even in the most common place situation and we learn more about the characters attitudes and inner lives during this stand-off than from any amount of barrack room exposition.

All of the acting roles are handled with skill and Bigelow directs with the same kinetic energy that she brought to the fantastic "Near Dark" (1987) and "Strange Days" (1995).

It works well on the smaller screen too - the intimate nature of the film making comes over well and there's an added sense of claustrophobia.

An intense and involving film that sets the bar fairly high for those to come.

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