The following is a republication of an explanation E-mail my film professor requested after i had placed The Hurt Locker in the “fantasy” column in a recent class exercise.
I by no means am a military “expert”, but I do have many friends and family who have been in or are in the service now. Also, I have Google. First let me give credit where credit is due. The Hurt Locker definitely deserved the awards for “Best Sound Design” and “Best Sound Mixing”. The experience of watching the film was very immersing. The set design, acting, editing, directing: these attributes were all top notch. However, Kathryn Bigelow may need a new fact checking department. The attention to detail was sloppy at best, as was the story line in my opinion. Here’s a few highlights:
1. Lone Wolf…s: Firstly and perhaps most importantly, whenever the EOD team leaves the base in the film they are almost always completely alone. Ask any soldier who has been to Iraq. In real life when an EOD team goes out on a mission they are ALWAYS accompanied by at least 3 Humvees. This would be about 15 additional soldiers with them at all times. In the service they refer to this as a rapid response team. From a reality perspective this cancels out most of the scenes in the entire movie. It is just simply silly to believe that a team of three soldiers would ever be allowed to do anything completely alone in Iraq.
2. The Sniper Scene: In this scene we find James and Sanborn in a death defying situation where they are asked to man a sniper rifle in the heat of the moment. My first problem with this scene, is that the enemy sniper quickly takes out three targets at the start of the battle. Yet when James leaves Sanborn alone to help Eldridge clean the bullets off for like 2 minutes, not a shot is fired. Sanborn is left miraculously unscathed. Later in this scene, Sanborn makes an expert shot at a moving target from about 1000yds. We learn earlier in the movie that Sanborn was an intelligence officer for 8 years before moving over to EOD. (Actually, this is impossible, He would not qualify for a CIB in either an Intel or an EOD assignment. It is an award strictly given to Infantry soldiers). That notwithstanding, my brother is a US Army intelligence officer and I can tell you that at no point has he ever handled a sniper rifle at any time, much less shot one. This shot would have been impossible for Sanborn to make. Oh and a quick P.S. Eldridge later in the scene hits a covered target from like 500yds. by just sort of indiscriminately firing in its general direction. But lets chock that one up to chance. Shall we?
3. This disarming stuff is very suspenseful: Probably my favorite. well hell, I’ve just gotta quote IMDB for this one.
“The bombs pictured would not have to be “disarmed” as portrayed. The military munitions were fused with primer cord. Simply cutting the primer cord would have isolated the bomb from the electrical cap ignition circuit thereby making it inert. Primercord explodes but with the force of a M-40 firecracker not high explosive force.”
4. Col. Go Boom: One of the scenes integral to the films story line is one in which Col. Cambridge the base psychologist goes out on a mission with the EOD team. Now, we’ve already discussed how the EOD team always goes out with a large fire team. But in this instance with a Col. in tow there would be even more protection. Frankly, I’m skeptical that the higher ups would even allow a Col. to go out into the field in the first place. But lets pretend for a minute that they did. So, they arrive at this building and get out of the Humvee…. alone! Go figure. At this point I’m already livid. And Sanborn says something like, “Security team hasn’t made it in yet.” And so they wait for the security team right? No. they go in alone (of course). Oh, and did I mention they leave a Col. outside completely alone with a large group of Iraqi’s… He’ll be fine.
5. Let’s Split up: The characters also make a number of tactical errors. The most notable is the scene towards the end of the film, where they run off in search of “Hajii’s” while surveying a bomb site (which they didn’t really actually do anything, they just sort of looked at it). Anyways, again lets pretend they’d be able to just sort of sneak off and go on a renegade three man mission (sigh). They come to an area with three paths and James says, “Looks like these streets are set up in a grid… We’ll have to split up.” Not sure why streets being in a grid would require you to split up exactly. But, more importantly NO, i repeat, NO soldier would EVER split up his fire team. It is a HORRIBLE tactic and against every bit of military training.
6. Hey buddy, have you seen my time machine?: The movie is littered with time errors, I noticed a few while watching, but more when I consulted the gods of the internet. i.e. Wearing of uniforms that were put into service in 2005 while the setting of the film is 2004. One of the characters is using an iPod Touch, these didn’t exist in 2004. One character says an Iraqi with a video camera is preparing a clip for YouTube. YouTube launched in, say it with me, 2005.
Basically, some disregard of reality is acceptable in a movie, but when it falls too far outside of the realm of suspension of disbelief it becomes distracting and angering, ESPECIALLY in a movie that is supposedly based on real events i.e. The war in Iraq. This sort of construction of reality in a realistic setting is offensive to the viewer.
The film crew obviously lacked any type of military consultant on the film, and apparently aren’t even familiar with the Internet or how to use Wikipedia. These types of incongruities in a film in this day in age are simply unacceptable, and unforgivable.
That’s just a few of the more notable things that cause me to classify this movie “fantasy” but there are many, many, many more … but don’t take my word for it. Check it out! As if I wasn’t frustrated at this film enough! lol Thanks IMDB.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0887912/goofs
