The Hurt Locker, was a great movie. It was made extremely interesting due to the reality of it. This movie gave people the opportunity to see into the lives of EOD specialists. The movie did a fantastic job of expressing the emotional burdens that these men feel and the traumatic lives they live, facing death every day and possible being the reason for someone else’s death. Through the use of intense and dramatic action scenes mixed with the focus on expression of emotion in the film, the directors did an excellent job of portraying the lives of these brave men.
The Hurt Locker, is a movie that portrays an EOD’s life, and passion. It takes place in Iraq during the war that is currently taking place between Iraq and the U.S.A. In the film there are multiple themes that is portrayed by the director, through his directing. An example of this would be the directing around the theme of the fragility of life. In a scene where a car bomb is on fire and the team is under fire. The leader is still attempting to disable to bomb in the car. With the quick cuts between shots, the loud noise of screaming and gun fire, and added sound effects of the bomb coming closer to detonation, an extremely intense and upsetting setting is created. The energy in the scene makes the audience feel that the entire team could die any second, but then this chaos is quickly resolved. Through the use of the different scenes similar to this, the viewers are aware of how close these men are to death every day of their lives.
I felt that the depth given to these characters inner thoughts and lives outside the war, helped to connect them to the audience, especially during scenes where it seemed these characters were going to die. For example, Eldridge was one of the main characters. In the opening scene of the film, Eldridge’s friend died from remote detonation. Eldridge had a chance to prevent his friends death and because he made the wrong decision he lives with the guilt of his friends death. We see Eldridge in therapy and discussing his deep thoughts and guilt. This heart-wrenching moment where he explains how he is changed because of his mistake, the audience connects with the character on a personal level through this small insight to his emotions. Another example would be when James, the team leader, in a drunken stupor, reveals his personal “hurt locker” to his teammates. James has a box and he describes a few of the items in this box in detail, but explains that the reason all these random things relate and are in this box, is because each item, took part in almost killing him. Bomb switches, and other components were found in this box expectedly, but the unusual thing in the box, was his wedding ring. Being that he was still married, this was extremely unexpected to see, but this was directed because it showed his personal connection to his job. This being the fact that he had grown more attached to his job than his own family, which would also derive a mixed reaction from the audience, as people would have opposing opinions about the morality of this. 
In this film, camera angles and lighting are used often in order to set a tone for the scene. In the opening scene of the film when a member of the bomb squad team is killed by a bomb, the scene is made even more through the use of multiple camera angles. In the scene, they use about 8 different views of the same scene. These shots are used in something similar to a short montage. Each shot was slowed down and then through the use of quick cuts, we see many angles of the same shot in a short period of time in order to show the power and wide impact of the explosion, along with it’s effects on the sub-focus, being the character who is killed. In addition to camera angles, different lightings are used to change the view of characters or scenes. For example, throughout the movie James interacts often with a small child named Beckum. In these scenes, it is always sunny and bright to give a happy and energetic mood to the scene. Later James thinks Beckum was murdered and goes on a vendetta, in order to avenge his friend. As it turns out, James had mistaken the corpse of this child for his friend who had not been harmed at all. Embarrassed about his pointless vendetta, James chooses to ignore Beckum; in their last encounter, different from the rest, the lighting was darker and dampened the happy relationship between the two. 
Throughout this film there were many different kinds of thematic elements and cinematic techniques that all coordinate to make the film great. I liked the director’s blend of reality and the public’s fictional thoughts of war. He makes James, as the main character, seem like a hero from a comic, fearless and unstoppable. I really liked the way this informed me of the true habits and hardships of war, while keeping me entertained and interested in the fictional attitude and layout of the movie.
