Kerux: a portfolio of Calvin Theological Seminary - Volume 44.6 - 11 May 2010

The Hurt Locker

Movie Review

by Dave Bosscher

I must admit, I initially ignored The Hurt Locker. Several friends recommended it to me, but I shrugged it off. However, after it won 6 Oscars and an unheard-of 97% rating on Rottentomatoes.com, I was compelled to take a look.

First off, this film does an excellent job of creating a feeling of tension in its audience. Without making us feel miserable, we are sharing a feeling of restless and nervousness with the characters on screen. The Hurt Locker is quite well acted and also does a great job of illustrating the difficulty of adjusting back to civilian life after serving time in Iraq.

Yet, The Hurt Locker has been lauded an accurate film. According to director, Kathryn Bigelow, the film gives us a “boots-on-the-ground” look at combat. Truthfully, I found myself struggling to find what exactly was accurate about it.

Most war movies have a lot of attention to detail. In this regard, The Hurt Locker was laughable. From the very first scene, I started to notice problems. The soldiers were wearing the wrong uniforms, ones that hadn’t yet been issued as of 2004, when the film was supposedly taking place. Second, the main character is a somewhat mentally unstable EOD officer. EOD personnel have some of the highest psychological requirements around. This makes an unstable EOD officer about as likely as a legless Navy SEAL. I had to watch a Barret M82 jam on dirty bullets. This does not happen. Also, I had to watch supposedly highly trained British and American soldiers using said rifle, a rifle firing such a large round that it couldn’t care less about wind, missing shots by 8-10 feet at 200 meters. A soldier would have to have an epileptic seizure to miss that shot. Meanwhile, some guy in the distance is landing perfect headshots with a PSL, which is a rifle with roughly the same accuracy potential as a Michael Moore documentary. The list goes on, but I think I’ve made my point.

Nearly all details down to vehicles used, weapons carried, combat situations portrayed, and tactics used were completely inaccurate. It was definitely entertaining, but saying that The Hurt Locker is an accurate representation of the Iraq war is like saying that an episode of House shows exactly what its like to be a doctor.