The Hurt Locker is incredibly tense and engrossing for the first hour and a half. Visually, the film is incredibly similar to Black Hawk Down in terms of technology and style. It seems as if there are a number of hand-held cameras that capture chaotic action with tight shots, pulling the viewer into the conflict zone. There are never any wide angle shots, because that would provide an overview of the situation and some degree of control. Unfortunately, one of the key messages of both films is that war offers no control and survival can be entirely arbitrary.
Although both Iraq and Somalia are international hotspots that highlight the difficulties that a standing army faces against guerrilla forces in an urban setting, the similarities between the films end there. The Hurt Locker is a far superior film because of the character development, which is forcibly limited by the twenty-four hour timeline in Black Hawk Down. The audience is drawn into the film because they care about the characters; the fact that a bomb could go off at any moment adds to that drama.
The members of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit face a small margin of error and are under extreme stress. As they attempt to survive the last month of their rotation in Iraq, each copes with stress differently. After the team leader is killed diffusing a bomb, a new sergeant assumes leadership of the team. There are differences between the unconventional expert and his subordinates but these fade away during daily death-defying missions.
For me, The Hurt Locker took a turn for the worse when a storyline is introduced regarding a young Iraqi boy who had been turned into a body bomb. The rhythm of separate but equally dangerous missions that comprise a terrifying tour of duty is briefly disrupted and there is no concrete resolution. The movie regains its footing when the rotation is over and the sergeant faces more difficulty selecting a cereal in the grocery store than he ever did facing an Improvised Explosive Device in a warzone. There was something he needed that he gained from diffusing over eight hundred and thirty seven bombs that family life could never provide. ***