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The Hurt Locker

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The Hurt Locker
From above a flat and dry desert floor, a person in a green military uniform with heavy padding holds red wires attached to seven pill-shaped bomb canister scattered around him. At the top of the poster are three critics' favorable opinions: "A near-perfect movie", "A full-tilt action picture", and "Ferociously suspenseful". Below the quotes is the title "THE HURT LOCKER" and the tagline, "You don't have to be a hero to do this job. But it helps."
Theatrical release poster
Directed byKathryn Bigelow
Written byMark Boal
Produced byKathryn Bigelow
Mark Boal
Nicolas Chartier
Greg Shapiro
StarringJeremy Renner
Anthony Mackie
Brian Geraghty
Christian Camargo
Evangeline Lilly
Ralph Fiennes
David Morse
Guy Pearce
CinematographyBarry Ackroyd
Edited byChris Innis
Bob Murawski
Music byMarco Beltrami
Buck Sanders
Production
company
Distributed bySummit Entertainment (US)
Release dates
September 4, 2008 (2008-09-04)
(Venice Film Festival)
June 26, 2009 (2009-06-26)
United States
Running time
130 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguagesEnglish
Arabic
Budget$15,000,000[1]
Box office$40,016,144[1]

The Hurt Locker is an American war film about a United States Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team during the Iraq War. The film was directed by Kathryn Bigelow and the screenplay was written by Mark Boal, a freelance writer who was embedded as a journalist in 2004 with a US bomb squad in Iraq. It stars Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty as members of the EOD unit and follows their tour of duty as they contend with defusing bombs, the threat of insurgency, and the tension that develops among them.

The film was shot in Jordan within miles of the Iraqi border, because Bigelow wanted to bring greater authenticity to the film. This benefited filming by supplying many Iraqi refugees for extras and the unmistakable heat of the Middle East.

The Hurt Locker premiered at the Venice Film Festival in Italy during 2008. After being shown at the Toronto International Film Festival, it was picked up for distribution in the United States by Summit Entertainment. The film was released in the United States on June 26, 2009 but received a more widespread theatrical release on July 24, 2009. Because the 2008 film was not originally released in the U.S. until 2009, it was eligible to be judged in the 82nd Academy Awards held in 2010.

The Hurt Locker earned numerous awards and honors from critics' organizations, festivals and groups. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won six including Best Picture and Best Director for Bigelow, the first woman to win this award.

Plot

The Hurt Locker opens with a quotation from War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, a best-selling 2002 book by New York Times war correspondent and journalist Chris Hedges: "The rush of battle is a potent and often lethal addiction, for war is a drug."[2][3]

The story depicts how the fictional character Sergeant First Class William James, a battle-tested veteran, becomes a team leader in Bravo company of a U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit during the early stages of the post-invasion period in Iraq in 2004,[4][5] replacing Staff Sergeant Thompson, a character who was killed by a radio-controlled 155 mm improvised explosive device (IED) in Baghdad. The fictional team consists of Sergeant J.T. Sanborn and Specialist Owen Eldridge, whose jobs are to communicate with their team leader via radio inside his bombsuit, and provide him with rifle cover while he examines IEDs. During their missions of disarming IEDs and engaging insurgents together, James's unorthodox methods lead Sanborn and Eldridge to consider him reckless. Tensions mount between James and the other two team members. During a raid on a warehouse, James discovers the dead body of a young boy who has been surgically implanted with an unexploded bomb. James believes it to be "Beckham", a young Iraqi merchant he had previously befriended.

Later, James orders his team to pursue three insurgents responsible for a recent explosion. Sanborn protests that the task should be left to the three infantry platoons in the area, but James overrules him. During the operation, Eldridge is shot in the leg. The next morning, James is approached by Beckham. The young boy tries to converse with James, who walks by without saying a word. Being airlifted for surgery, Eldridge angrily blames James for his injury.

After failing in a mission to remove and disarm a time bomb strapped to an Iraqi civilian's chest, Sanborn becomes emotional and confesses to James that he can no longer cope with the pressure of being in EOD, and he looks forward to finally leaving Iraq and having a son. James returns home to his wife and child and is shown quietly performing the routine tasks of suburban civilian life. But the boredom of normal life easily agitates James. One night James confesses to his infant son that there is only one thing that he knows he loves. At the close of the film he is seen going through another tour serving with Delta company of an EOD unit as they are just starting their 365 day rotation.

Cast

  • Jeremy Renner as Sergeant First Class William James, the leader of the EOD squad. An Army Ranger, he is the most experienced of the squad, having served in the War in Afghanistan, and having defused over 870 explosives. James is reckless, and this causes tension between him and his team. Renner's performance as James earned him an Academy Award for Best Actor Nomination.
  • Anthony Mackie as Sergeant J. T. Sanborn, one of the members of the EOD squad. A soldier who insists on doing things by the book, Sanborn is frequently critical of SFC James' apparent recklessness. Towards the end of Bravo's rotation Sanborn confesses that he is not ready to die and wants to have a son.
  • Brian Geraghty as Specialist Owen Eldridge, the youngest member of the EOD squad. Although he is outwardly tough, he suffers mental anguish and believes he is responsible for the death of his original squad leader, SSG Thompson, having not fired at the insurgent responsible. Eldridge seeks counsel in LTC Cambridge, the base psychiatrist.
  • Guy Pearce as Staff Sergeant Matthew Thompson, the original leader of the EOD squad.
  • Christian Camargo as Lieutenant Colonel John Cambridge. LTC Cambridge is the head psychiatrist at Camp Victory. He helps SPC Eldridge recover from the death of SSG Thompson, although he sometimes seems oblivious to the soldiers' pressures. Originally from New York, Cambridge is a graduate of Yale University. He is killed by an exploding IED and all that is left is his helmet, which Eldridge recovers.
  • David Morse as Colonel Reed, the commander of the American soldiers at the United Nations building. He is fascinated by the EOD squad and questions SFC James about his job.
  • Ralph Fiennes as the leader of a private military contractor unit the squad encounters.
  • Evangeline Lilly as Connie James, the wife of SFC James. Despite what he initially says, James loves her but feels more comfortable in a warzone. When he goes home to the United States, James discusses the need for more bomb technicians in Iraq.
  • Christopher Sayegh as "Beckham", a 12-year-old Iraqi boy who sells pirated DVDs and various electronic items outside the base. When James discovers a boy's body planted with a bomb, he believes it is Beckham's.

Production

Writing

The Hurt Locker is based on accounts of Mark Boal, a freelance journalist who was embedded with an American bomb squad in the war in Iraq. Director Kathryn Bigelow was familiar with Boal's work before his experiences, having turned one of his Playboy articles into the short-lived television series The Inside. When Boal was embedded with the squad, he went with the members 10 to 15 times a day to watch their tasks, keeping in touch with Bigelow about his experiences.[6] Boal combined his experiences into a fictional retelling of real events. He said of the film's goal, "The idea is that it's the first movie about the Iraq War that purports to show the experience of the soldiers. We wanted to show the kinds of things that soldiers go through that you can't see on CNN, and I don't mean that in a censorship-conspiracy way. I just mean the news doesn't actually put photographers in with units that are this elite."[7]

Casting

The film's three main stars are Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty. Renner plays Sergeant First Class William James, a composite character with qualities based on individuals that screenwriter Mark Boal knew when embedded with the bomb squad.[6] Mackie plays Sergeant J.T. Sanborn and describes his experience filming in Jordan in the summer, "It was so desperately hot, and we were so easily agitated. But that movie was like doing a play. We really looked out for each other, and it was a great experience. It made me believe in film."[8] Geraghty played Specialist Owen Eldridge. Mackie and Geraghty had previously worked together on the film We Are Marshall. Secondary roles include Christopher Sayegh as Beckham, Christian Camargo as Colonel Cambridge, Guy Pearce as Staff Sergeant Matt Thompson, David Morse as Colonel Reed, Ralph Fiennes as head of a military civil contractor team, and Evangeline Lilly as Connie James. In Jordan, Bigelow found there were several hundred thousand refugees of Iraq. She cast refugees who had theatrical backgrounds, such as Suhail Aldabbach, who plays a forced suicide bomber at the film's end.[6] Other tertiary roles include Nabil Koni, Fesal Sadoun, Imad Dadudi, Hasan Darwish, Wasfi Amour, Nibras Quassem, and Nader Tarawneh.

Filming

Members of the key filmmaking crew include producer Tony Mark, director of photography Barry Ackroyd, film editors Chris Innis and Bob Murawski, production designer Karl Júlíusson, production sound mixer Ray Beckett, and costume designer George Little. The film's explosions and special effects were designed by Richard Stutsman and his team. Filming began in July 2007 in Amman, Jordan.

According to producer Tony Mark, the blood, sweat and heat captured on-camera in the production was mirrored behind the scenes. "It's a tough, tough movie about a tough, tough subject", Mark said in an interview, "There was a palpable tension throughout on the set. It was just like the onscreen story of three guys who fight with each other, but when the time comes to do the work, they come together to get the job done."[9]

Filming began in July 2007 in Jordan and Kuwait.[7] Producer Greg Shapiro spoke about security concerns of filming in Jordan, "It was interesting telling people we were going to make the movie in Jordan because the first question everybody asked was about the security situation here." Often four or more camera crews filmed simultaneously, which resulted in nearly 200 hours of footage.[10][11] Although the filmmakers scouted for locations in Morocco, director Kathryn Bigelow sought greater authenticity and decided to film in Jordan. Some of the locations were less than three miles from the Iraq border.[10]

Producer Tony Mark recalled armorer David Fencl's finishing a 12-hour day and staying up all night to create proper ammunition for a sniper rifle when the supplies did not clear Jordanian customs in time for the scheduled shoot.[9] The film shoot had few of the normal Hollywood perks; nobody on the set got an air-conditioned trailer or a private bathroom.[9] Lead actor Jeremy Renner, who trained with real EOD teams before shooting the film, says that great care was taken to ensure the film's authenticity.[12] According to Renner, shooting the film in the Middle East contributed to this. "There were two-by-fours with nails being dropped from two-story buildings that hit me in the helmet, and they were throwing rocks.... We got shot at a few times while we were filming", Renner said. "When you see it, you're gonna feel like you've been in war."[13]

"You can't fake that amount of heat", Mackie says, adding, "When you are on set and all of the extras are Iraqi refugees, it really informs the movie that you're making. When you start hearing the stories from a true perspective ... of people who were actually there, it gives you a clear viewpoint of where you are as an artist and the story you would like to tell. It was a great experience to be there."[14]

Cinematography

For the film, Bigelow sought to immerse audiences "into something that was raw, immediate and visceral". The director was impressed with cinematographer Barry Ackroyd's work on United 93 and The Wind That Shakes the Barley and invited him to do the camera work for The Hurt Locker. While the film was independently produced and filmed on a low budget, Bigelow used multiple Super 16 mm cameras to capture multiple perspectives, saying, "That's how we experience reality, by looking at the microcosm and the macrocosm simultaneously. The eye sees differently than the lens, but with multiple focal lengths and a muscular editorial style, the lens can give you that microcosm/macrocosm perspective, and that contributes to the feeling of total immersion."[15]

Critical reception

The Hurt Locker received near universal critical acclaim. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 97% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on a sample of 182, with a weighted mean score of 8.4 out of 10,[16] and it was the second highest-rated film in 2009 at the site, behind Pixar's Up with 98%. Rotten Tomatoes wrote of the critics' consensus, "A well-acted, intensely shot, action filled war epic, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker is thus far the best reviewed of the recent dramatizations of the Iraq War."[16]

At Metacritic, which assigns a rating normalized to 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the film has received an average score of 94 based on 35 reviews.[17]

Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun Times rated the film as the best of the year and one of the best of the decade,[18] writing, "The Hurt Locker is a great film, an intelligent film, a film shot clearly so that we know exactly who everybody is and where they are and what they're doing and why." He applauded how the suspense was built, calling the film "spellbinding". Ebert considered Renner "a leading contender for Academy Awards", writing, "His performance is not built on complex speeches but on a visceral projection of who this man is and what he feels. He is not a hero in a conventional sense."[19] He eventually ranked it the second-best film of the decade, behind only Synecdoche, New York.[20] Richard Corliss of Time magazine also spoke highly of Renner's performance, calling it a highlight of the film. Corliss wrote, "He's ordinary, pudgy-faced, quiet, and at first seems to lack the screen charisma to carry a film. That supposition vanishes in a few minutes, as Renner slowly reveals the strength, confidence and unpredictability of a young Russell Crowe. The merging of actor and character is one of the big things to love about this movie... It's a creepy marvel to watch James in action. He has the cool aplomb, analytical acumen and attention to detail of a great athlete, or a master psychopath, maybe both." Corliss praised the film's "steely calm" tone, reflective of its main character. Corliss summarized, "The Hurt Locker is a near-perfect movie about men in war, men at work. Through sturdy imagery and violent action, it says that even Hell needs heroes."[21]

A. O. Scott of The New York Times called The Hurt Locker the best American feature film yet made about the war in Iraq: "You may emerge from The Hurt Locker shaken, exhilarated and drained, but you will also be thinking ... The movie is a viscerally exciting, adrenaline-soaked tour de force of suspense and surprise, full of explosions and hectic scenes of combat, but it blows a hole in the condescending assumption that such effects are just empty spectacle or mindless noise." Scott noticed that the film reserved criticism of the war but wrote of how the director handled the film's limits, "Ms. Bigelow, practicing a kind of hyperbolic realism, distills the psychological essence and moral complications of modern warfare into a series of brilliant, agonizing set pieces." He also applauded the convergence of the characters in the film, "[It] focuses on three men whose contrasting temperaments knit this episodic exploration of peril and bravery into a coherent and satisfying story."[22] Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times wrote that the performances of Renner, Mackie, and Geraghty would raise their profiles considerably and said their characters reveal their "unlooked-for aspects", such as Renner's character being playful with an Iraqi boy. Turan applauded Boal's "lean and compelling" script and reviewed Bigelow's direction, "Bigelow and her team bring an awesome ferocity to re-creating the unhinged mania of bomb removal in an alien, culturally unfathomable atmosphere."[23]

Guy Westwell of Sight & Sound wrote that cinematographer Barry Ackroyd provided "sharp handheld coverage" and that Paul N.J. Ottosson's sound design "uses the barely perceptible ringing of tinnitus to amp up the tension".[24] Westwell praised the director's skill: "The careful mapping of the subtle differences between each bomb, the play with point of view ... and the attenuation of key action sequences ... lends the film a distinctive quality that can only be attributed to Bigelow's clever, confident direction."[24] The critic noted its different take on the Iraq War, writing that "it confronts the fact that men often take great pleasure in war".[24] He concluded, "This unapologetic celebration of a testosterone-fuelled lust for war may gall. Yet there is something original and distinctive about the film's willingness to admit that for some men (and many moviegoers) war carries an intrinsic dramatic charge."[24] Amy Taubin of Film Comment described The Hurt Locker as "a structuralist war movie" and "a totally immersive, off-the-charts high-anxiety experience from beginning to end". Taubin praised Ackroyd's "brilliant" cinematography with multiple viewpoints and also said of the film's editing, "Bob Murawski and Chris Innis's editing is similarly quick and nervous; the rapid changes in POV as they cut from one camera's coverage to another's makes you feel as if you, like the characters, are under threat from all sides."[25]

Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal called it "A first-rate action thriller, a vivid evocation of urban warfare in Iraq, a penetrating study of heroism and a showcase for austere technique, terse writing and a trio of brilliant performances."[26] Toronto Star critic Peter Howell said, "Just when you think the battle of Iraq war dramas has been fought and lost, along comes one that demands to be seen... If you can sit through The Hurt Locker without your heart nearly pounding through your chest, you must be made of granite."[27] Entertainment Weekly's film critic Lisa Schwarzbaum gave the film the rare "A" rating, calling it, "an intense, action-driven war pic, a muscular, efficient standout that simultaneously conveys the feeling of combat from within as well as what it looks like on the ground. This ain't no war videogame."[28]

Derek Elley of Variety found The Hurt Locker to be "gripping" as a thriller but felt that the film was weakened by, "its fuzzy (and hardly original) psychology". Elley wrote that it was unclear to know where the drama lay: "These guys get by on old-fashioned guts and instinct rather than sissy hardware – but it's not a pure men-under-stress drama either." The critic also felt that the script showed, "signs of artificially straining for character depth".[29] Anne Thompson, also writing for Variety, believed The Hurt Locker to be a contender for Best Picture, particularly based on the unique subject matter pursued by a female director and on being an exception to other films about the Iraq War that had performed poorly.[30]

Tara McKelvey from The American Prospect believes that the film is pro-U.S. Army propaganda, although it sets itself up as anti-war when its message in the beginning is "War is a drug". She continues, "you feel empathy for the soldiers when they shoot. And in this way, the full impact of the Iraq war – at least as it was fought in 2004 – becomes clear: American soldiers shot at Iraqi civilians even when, for example, they just happened to be holding a cell phone and standing near an IED". She concludes, "For all the graphic violence, bloody explosions and, literally, human butchery that is shown in the film, The Hurt Locker is one of the most effective recruiting vehicles for the U.S. Army that I have seen."[31]

Response among veterans

The movie was criticized by some Iraq veterans and embedded reporters for inaccurately portraying wartime conditions.[32] Writing for The Huffington Post, Iraq veteran Kate Hoit said that The Hurt Locker is "Hollywood's version of the Iraq war and of the soldiers who fight it, and their version is inaccurate". She described the film as being more accurate than other recently released war movies, but expressed concerns that numerous errors in the portrayal of military conditions would prevent service members from enjoying the film.[33]

Author Brandon Friedman, also a combat veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan, shared a similar view at VetVoice: "The Hurt Locker is a high-tension, well-made, action movie that will certainly keep most viewers on the edges of their seats. But if you know anything about the Army, or about operations or life in Iraq, you'll be so distracted by the nonsensical sequences and plot twists that it will ruin the movie for you. It certainly did for me." Friedman criticized the accuracy of the film's representation of combat, saying "in real life, EOD techs don't conduct dangerous missions as autonomous three-man teams without communications gear ... Another thing you'll rarely hear in combat is an EOD E-7 suggesting to two or three of his guys that they leave the scene of an explosion in an Iraqi city by saying: 'C'mon, let's split up. We can cover more ground that way.'"[34]

At the blog Army of Dude, infantryman and Iraq veteran Alex Horton noted that "the way the team goes about their missions is completely absurd", though he went on to call the film "the best Iraq movie to date".[35]

Troy Steward, another combat veteran, wrote on the blog Bouhammer that while the film accurately depicted the scale of bomb violence and the relations between Iraqis and troops, "just about everything else wasn’t realistic". Steward went on to say: "I was amazed that a movie so bad could get any kind of accolades from anyone."[36]

A review published March 8, 2010 in the Air Force Times[37] cited overall negative reviews from bomb experts in Iraq attached to the 4th Brigade, 1st Armored Division, quoting a bomb disposal team leader who called the movie’s portrayal of a bomb expert "grossly exaggerated and not appropriate", and describing the lead character as "more of a run and gun cowboy type…exactly the kind of person that we're not looking for". Another bomb disposal team member said that the lead character's "swagger would put a whole team at risk. Our team leaders don't have that kind of invincibility complex, and if they do, they aren't allowed to operate. A team leader's first priority is getting his team home in one piece."

On the embedded side, former correspondent for The Politico and Military Times Christian Lowe (who embedded with U.S. military units each year from 2002 to 2005) explained at DefenseTech: "Some of the scenes are so disconnected with reality to be almost parody."[38]

On the other hand, Henry Engelhardt, an adjutant with the National Explosive Ordnance Disposal Association having 20 years' experience in bomb defusal, praised the film's atmosphere and depiction of the difficulties of the job, saying, "Of course, no film is realistic in all its details, but the important things were done very well."[39] Screenwriter Mark Boal noted that The Hurt Locker was produced independently, without US Army extras.[40]

Sarver lawsuit

In early March 2010, army bomb disposal expert Master Sergeant Jeffrey Sarver filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against The Hurt Locker. Sarver's lawsuit claimed he used the term "hurt locker" and the phrase "war is a drug" around Boal, that his likeness was used to create the character William James, and that the portrayal of William James defames Sarver.[41] Sarver said he felt "just a little bit hurt, a little bit felt left out" and cheated out of "financial participation" in the film.[42] Sarver claimed he originated the title of the film; however, the title is a decades-old colloquialism for being injured, as in "they sent him to the hurt locker".[43] It dates back to the Vietnam War where it was one of several phrases meaning "in trouble or at a disadvantage; in bad shape".[44] Boal defended himself to the press, saying "the film is a work of fiction inspired by many people's stories";[42] he said he talked to more than 100 soldiers during his research.[45] Jody Simon, a Los Angeles-based entertainment lawyer, noted that "soldiers don't have privacy", and that when the military embedded Boal they gave him full permission to use his observations as he saw fit. Summit Entertainment, the producers of the film, said in early March that they hoped for a quick resolution to the suit.[42]

On May 12, 2010, Voltage Pictures, the production company behind The Hurt Locker, announced that it will attempt to sue "potentially tens of thousands" of online computer users who downloaded pirated copies of the film using the BitTorrent protocol over P2P networks. It will be the largest lawsuit of its kind.[46][47]

Release

Festival screenings

The Hurt Locker had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 4, 2008, and the film received a 10-minute standing ovation at the end of its screening.[48] At the festival, the film won the SIGNIS award,[49] the Arca Cinemagiovani Award (Arca Young Cinema Award) for "Best Film Venezia 65" (chosen by an international youth jury); the Human Rights Film Network Award; and the "Navicella" – Venezia Cinema Award.[50] The film also screened at the 33rd Annual Toronto International Film Festival on September 8,[48] where it generated "keen interest", though distributors were reluctant to buy it since previous films about the Iraq War performed poorly at the box office.[51] Summit Entertainment purchased the film for distribution in the United States in what was perceived as "a skittish climate for pic sales",[52] reportedly paying $1.2 million for the rights.[53]

In the rest of 2008, The Hurt Locker screened at the 3rd Zurich Film Festival,[54] the 37th Festival du Nouveau Cinéma,[55] the 21st Mar del Plata Film Festival,[56] the 5th Dubai International Film Festival,[57] and the 12th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.[58] In 2009, The Hurt Locker screened at the Göteborg International Film Festival,[59] the 10th Film Comment Selects festival,[60] and the South by Southwest Film Festival.[61] It had a centerpiece screening at the 3rd AFI Dallas International Film Festival, where director Kathryn Bigelow received the Dallas Star Award.[62] Other 2009 festivals included the Human Rights Nights International Film Festival,[63] the Seattle International Film Festival,[64] and the Philadelphia Film Festival.[65]

Theatrical run

The Hurt Locker was first publicly released in Italy by Warner Bros. on October 10, 2008.[48] Summit Entertainment picked the film up for distribution in the United States after it was shown at the Toronto International Film Festival for $1.5 million.[66] The Hurt Locker was released in the United States on June 26, 2009, with a limited release at four theaters in Los Angeles and New York City.[67] Over its first weekend the film grossed $145,352, averaging $36,338 per theater. The following weekend, beginning July 3, the film grossed $131,202 at nine theaters, averaging $14,578 per theater.[68] It held the highest per-screen average of any movie playing theatrically in the United States for the first two weeks of its release,[1] gradually moving into the top 20 chart with much wider-released, bigger budget studio films.[69] It held around number 13 or number 14 on box office charts for an additional four weeks. Summit Entertainment took The Hurt Locker wider to more than 200 screens on July 24, 2009 and more than 500 screens on July 31, 2009. As of March 21, 2010, the film grossed $40,016,144 against its $15 million production budget, and the domestic total of $16,400,000 places it at number 117 of all films released in the U.S. in 2009.[1]

According to the Los Angeles Times, The Hurt Locker performed better than most recent dramas about Middle East conflict. The film outperformed all other Iraq-war-themed films such as In the Valley of Elah (2007), Stop-Loss (2008) and Afghanistan-themed Lions for Lambs (2007).[66]

In the United States, The Hurt Locker is one of only three Best Picture winners (The English Patient and Amadeus being the other two) to never enter the weekend box office top 5 since top 10 rankings were first recorded in 1982. It is the only Best Picture winner on record to have never entered the weekend box office top 10.

The Hurt Locker opened in the top ten in the United Kingdom in 103 theaters, scoring the fourth highest per screen average of $3,607, ranking between G-Force and G.I. Joe in overall grosses. The film garnered a half a million dollars in its opening weekend in the United Kingdom of August 28 through August 30, 2009,[70] and has grossed over a million dollars in the UK, Japan, Spain, and France through March.[71]

Distribution: Independent film print shortage

According to an article in the Springfield, Illinois, State Journal-Register, as of August 2009 there was a shortage of film prints of The Hurt Locker, as well as other hit independent films such as Food Inc.[72] Distributors told theater owners that they will have to wait weeks or months past the initial U.S. release date, to get the few available prints that are already in distribution. "Sometimes the distributors goof up", said a film buyer for one theater, "they misjudge how wide they should go".[72] One theory is that the independent films have a hard time competing for screen space during the summer against blockbuster tent-pole movies that hog up as much as half the screens in any given city, flooding the United States market with thousands of prints. Theater owners have also complained about distributors "bunching too many movies too close together".[72][73] It is also thought that independent film distributors are trying to cut their losses on prints by recycling them. Given the popularity of some of the films that are "hard to come by", this strategy may be leaving box office money on the table.[72][73]

Home media

The Hurt Locker was released on DVD and Blu-ray in North America on January 12, 2010. This disc includes an added audio commentary featuring director Kathryn Bigelow, writer Mark Boal, and other members of the production crew, an image gallery of photos from shooting, and a 15-minute EPK featurette highlighting the filming experience in Jordan and the film's production. The UK DVD and Blu-ray has no commentary.

Awards and honors

Main article: List of accolades received by The Hurt Locker

Starting with its initial screening at the 2008 Venice International Film Festival, The Hurt Locker has earned many awards and honors. It has also earned its place on more Top 10 lists than any other film of 2009. It was nominated in nine categories at the 82nd Academy Awards and won in six: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and Best Film Editing. It lost the award for Best Actor to Crazy Heart, Best Original Score to Up, and Best Cinematography to Avatar.[74] This makes The Hurt Locker the lowest-grossing film to win Best Picture and Bigelow the first woman to win an Oscar for best director.[75][76]

The Hurt Locker was also nominated for three Golden Globe awards.[77] Kathryn Bigelow was awarded the 2009 Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Achievement in Feature Film for the film, the first time a female director has ever won.[78] The film won six awards at the BAFTAs held on February 21, 2010, including Best Film and Best Director for Bigelow. The film swept most critics groups awards for best director and best picture including Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Boston, and Las Vegas film critics associations. The Hurt Locker also became only the fourth film to win all three major U.S. critics group prizes (NY, LA and NSFC) joining Goodfellas, Schindler's List and L.A. Confidential.

The Washington DC Area Film Critics award for Best Director was given to Kathryn Bigelow, the first time the honor has gone to a woman. The five awards from the Boston Society of Film Critics was the most given out by that organization to a single film in the group's entire 30-year history.[79] According to the film-ranking website They Shoot Pictures, Don't They?, The Hurt Locker is the 13th most acclaimed film of the 21st Century.[80] In February 2010, the film's producer Nicolas Chartier emailed a group of Academy Award voters in an attempt to sway them to vote for The Hurt Locker instead of "a $500M film" (referring to Avatar) for the Best Picture award. He later issued a public apology saying that it was "out of line and not in the spirit of the celebration of cinema that this acknowledgment is".[81] The Academy later banned him from attending the award ceremony, the first time the Academy has ever banned an individual nominee.[82]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c d "The Hurt Locker (2009)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved March 20, 2010.
  2. ^ Alistair Harkness (August 28, 2009). "Film Review: The Hurt Locker". The Scotsman.
  3. ^ Hedges, Chris (2003 (reprint)), War is a Force that Gives us Meaning, New York: Random House Inc., p. 3 of introduction, ISBN 9781400034635 {{citation}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)CS1 maint: year (link)
  4. ^ Edelstein, David (2009-06-26). "'Hurt Locker': American Bomb Squad In Baghdad". NPR. Retrieved 2009-11-02.
  5. ^ McCarthy, Erin (2009-07-09). "Hurt Locker: Iraqi Explosive Ordnance Disposal Hits the Big Screen". Popular Mechanics. Hearst Communications. Retrieved 2009-11-02.
  6. ^ a b c Keogh, Tom (July 8, 2009). "'Hurt Locker' goes for 'you-are-there' effect in war story". The Seattle Times. {{cite news}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  7. ^ a b Kit, Borys (July 17, 2007). "'Locker' lands 3 in Iraq story". The Hollywood Reporter.
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References

Wikiquote has quotations related to The Hurt Locker.
Awards and achievements
Preceded by Academy Award for Best Picture
2009 		Most recent
BAFTA Award for Best Film
2010
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