The Hurt Locker opens with a quote from author Chris Hedges: "war is a drug." Following this unsubtle statement of theme, the film goes on to support the idea that "war is a drug" with skillfull filmmaking, but ultimately lets us down because it doesn't illuminate anything further.
The film is very good. The tension and action are second to none. You couldn't ask more of the cast, especially the wisely- casted unknowns, whose performances are so real you feel like you're watching a documentary. I expect to see Jeremy Renner get a lot more high profile work now after his excellent turn as a cavalier bomb-defuser. The locations and realism of the operations make you believe that this indeed is what things must be like in 2008 Iraq. But while the film achieves what it sets out to do, what it sets out to do isn't that compelling. The film tries to avoid becoming a full-blown story, and keeps us from ever fully knowing the characters, yet it asks us to be there for core emotional moments that are cliches of the war genre: the green soldier who struggles to keep his wits together (see The Deer Hunter for a better example) and the banality of coming home after experiencing the adrenaline rush of combat (also see The Deer Hunter). Saying that "war is a drug" might be a new take on the genre, but through the entire film, we come to understand nothing more than that.
