BUFS preview: Hurt Locker

BUFS proudly kicks off the Fall 2009 season with The Hurt Locker - a "full-throttle body shock of a movie," according to Variety's Scott Foundas. Directed by mistress of action and suspense Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break, Strange Days), The Hurt Locker has gained a wide reputation as the best film to date about the Iraq War, and a very likely contender for the Oscars.
The film takes place in 2004. Two soldiers, played by Anthony Mackie (8 Mile, Half Nelson) and Brian Geraghty (Jarhead, Bobby), are counting down to the end of their tour of duty when their leader suddenly and tragically needs replacing. Enter Staff Sergeant William James (played brilliantly by Jeremy Renner of S.W.A.T., and 28 Weeks Later), a bomb expert and reckless adrenaline junkie whose fearlessness might get them all killed.
War movies over the past few years have been interesting beasts. Audiences seem equally troubled by the blind patriotism of one and the sorrowful dissent of the next. For many of us, the politics of war is one thing, while the actuality of young men and women dying in a far-off place is quite another.
The Hurt Locker, written by former embedded journalist Mark Boal, refrains from commenting one way or the other. This is a film about a group of soldiers doing their job - the unenviable job of defusing bombs, which are literally everywhere. The thematic significance of defusing bombs in a time of war is utterly belied by the unbearable intensity and anxiety of the process itself.
The Hurt Locker screens Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Empire Theatres, Pen Centre. Visit brocku.ca/bufs for details.