Iraq Back On The Big Screen

24 August 2009

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Despite not doing well at the box office in recent months movies about the war on terror are still being churned out by Hollywood, The Hurt Locker is just the latest to be released.

Find a bomb, defuse it. Find a bomb, defuse it. The job is simple enough, but the room for error is zero. Fail to defuse it, and die.

This is the daily work of the United States Army's Bravo Company. They patrol Baghdad during one of the Iraq war's most hellish times, trying each day not to get blown up.

After a shocking opening sequence, James (Jeremy Renner) joins a tightly knit bomb-disposal unit where Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) is already the intelligence expert. James, by contrast, is a real cowboy.

Even in the hulking shell of his bomb suit, his swagger is obvious. He has successfully disabled 873 devices, approaching the job with the no-nonsense grit of a Bigelow hero... and the recklessness too.
But as the unit faces tougher challenges with each new bomb, the men start to fight James's bullish methods.

Of all the films trying to show just what the war feels like, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker is the one that cracks it.

At the top of her game, there is no better chronicler of pure guts under fire than Bigelow. This film stands among her very best. And, unlike most of other Iraq war movies that have been released recently The Hurt Locker has been met with critical acclaim.

Movies like The Hurt Locker and those that have come before including Lions for Lambs, Redacted and Rendition have broken with Hollywood tradition, as this is the first time that films have been shot and released while the war, that is taking place in the film, is still being waged.

During the Second World War and Vietnam the films that were produced were for propaganda purpose intended to rally the support of those back home, feature films were released when these conflicts came to an end.

However times are changing and reasons behind why America and Great Britain are at war has caused great unrest and these movies are attempting to tackle and highlight these issues.

However Lions for Lambs and Redacted, despite high profile casts and directors have not been met well with cinema goers.

The movie industry has seen a disengagement that the public has with the war and the question 'why did we go to war?' still remains.

But in the eyes of those whose confidence in the war effort is slowly ebbing away, or has disappeared altogether, their quintessential question of our time is why did we go to war? And was oil really a major factor?

Since the string of films covering 9/11 it seemed only a matter of time before movies surrounding the war on terror began to emerge.

But what are the motives behind the making of these movies? Do they genuinely want to highlight the atrocities that are currently happening in Iraq and Afghanistan therefore igniting a new interest in the war?

Is it propaganda a way to bring the troops home? Or is it just all for personal gain, exploiting a topic that is current, on going and affecting many lives?

And with movies like The Hurt Locker on the verge of release and Green Zone in production it doesn't seem to be a trend that will disappear any time soon.

However The Hurt Locker is a classy piece of filmmaking and it looks like it’s going to be the war on terror movie that will break the mould and gain the recognition that it deserves.

The Hurt Locker is released 28th August.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw

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