WHY “HURT LOCKER” DIDN’T CLICK WITH AUDIENCES AND WHY IT WAS STILL A GOOD FILM
December 7th, 2009There is no doubt that this film, written by Mark Boal and directed by Kathryn Bigelow, is a very tense thriller. Your heart is racing from the first scene to almost the last. The direction is terrific, the performances equally as meritorious. So what happened? Why didn’t it make a ton of money? Total US box office, $16.7 million.
Because it was ultimately unsatisfying as a film experience for the average film goer.
Yes, it did have a strong protagonist (Jeremy Renner as Staff Sgt. James) with a single minded goal – to disarm as many bombs as he could without blowing himself up. But he cares about nothing else – even his family at home gets short shrift until the very end, and then he abandons them to return to the action. He doesn’t develop any goals, he doesn’t really develop much of a relationship with his immediate subordinate Sgt. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie deserves an Oscar nod for this one), and he doesn’t change.
In other words, he starts out as a adrenaline junky willing to endanger his platoon to get his fix, and he ends up that way as well. And that’s why the film is unsatisfying – he’s the same person he was at the start. A cowboy (How many rules breakers have we seen in this type of movie?) whose only redeeming value is that he is good in war.
And since Sgt. James is not moving towards a goal, not moving towards change, not moving towards repairing his relationship with his wife, the scenes are repetitive. They encounter a situation, usually a roadside bomb. He defuses it with great difficulty. He walks away happy. Repeat until ten or fifteen times with variations.
Now, it may be that Boal and Bigelow meant to comment on the Iraqi war which, judging from this movie, was a difficult, urban war where the population didn’t want to be liberated and the US soldiers didn’t want to be there. Fine. Point taken. Anti-war movies are great, especially if the central character moves from one position to another (either direction is fine). But when the end is a repeat of the beginning, what is really the point? No journey, no story. Great scenes, but no actual movie. It’s not a satisfying experience unless you’re an adrenaline junky, too, in which case, you’re fine. It’s flashy film making, and worthy of a look. It will win awards, but not the box office of a movie that works for the public as well as the critics. What kind of movie do you want to make?