for TRIBUNE : ‘The Hurt Locker’ [6/10] and ‘Broken Embraces’ [4/10]

Published on: August 27th, 2009

The Hurt Locker
Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Broken Embraces
Director: Pedro Almodovar

—–
Scott: In the city always a refelection, in the woods always a sound.
Curtis: What about the desert? 
Scott: You don't wanna go in the desert.
     David Mamet, Spartan (2004)
—–

Older readers may recall ITV's popular 1979 drama Danger UXB, which followed the exploits of a wartime Royal Engineers bomb-disposal unit. Starring a pre-Brideshead Anthony Andrews, the series was at the time something of a novelty with its use of an armed-forces acronym (UXB = unexploded bomb) in the title.
   Thirty years on, most of us have read all about IEDs (improvised explosive devices) in frontline dispatches from Afghanistan and Iraq – and the latter theatre forms the backdrop for The Hurt Locker, a tense, character-based action-thriller whose wire-snipping set-pieces indicate that writer Mark Boal (who provided the story for 2006's underrated In the Valley of Elah) must surely have caught Danger UXB during its Stateside screenings in 1980-81.
   Himself a formed "embed" among a real-life explosives-disposal team, Boal presents the tale almost entirely from the American perspective: we're thus "embedded" with the unit's cocky, almost preternaturally-talented new leader, Sgt James (Jeremy Renner) and his long-suffering support-staff, Sgt Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Eldridge (Brian Geraghty).
   Boal and director Bigelow (Blue Steel, Strange Days, Point Break) focus tightly upon this trio as they move from IED to IED through rubble-strewn, sun-baked urban territory that ranges from the unsettling to the actively hostile. As episodic and jaggedly unpredictable as the war itself, the picture functions primarily as a character-study of Sgt James: a swaggering "wild-man" redneck of a blue-collar bloke who realises that he's found his unlikely, insanely hazardous metier several thousand miles from home. Indeed, he doesn't seem much cop at anything else, as indicated by brief, drolly downbeat glimpses of his dysfunctional domesticity back in Civvy Street, USA.
   And if The Hurt Locker quickly becomes, in effect, The Jeremy Renner Show, that's no bad thing -the pudge-faced 38-year-old quickly and utterly dominates proceedings with an irresistibly charismatic performance that's equal parts Aldo Ray and Simon Russell Beale. But while Sgt James (and surely it's no coincidence that a Sgt James also featured prominently in UXB) is a terrific creation, ideally cast, The Hurt Locker itself somehow never quite manages to explode into the masterpiece many US critics have hailed.
   Bigelow's gritty, pared-down direction too often recycles moods and tropes familiar from many recent Hollywood forays into this particular conflict, while the main subplot – Sgt James' friendship with a young local boy he calls 'Beckham' – is developed most confusingly. Throw in some distractingly unneccessary cameos from big-name actors and the result is a standard-issue modern war-movie, albeit elevated by an outstanding central performance. Early Academy Award talk for Renner as Best Actor is entirely justified – but to start calling The Hurt Locker the front-runner for Best Picture is surely to blow up its merits beyond all proportion.

   The latest recipient of the Best Supporting Actress Oscar – Penelope Cruz, who won for her latina-spitfire turn in Woody Allen's otherwise decidedly so-so Vicky Cristina Barcelona – returns to our screens in Broken Embraces, her fourth collaboration with writer-director Pedro Almodovar after Live Flesh (1997), All About My Mother (1999) and Volver (2006). But whereas the latter pair were genuine masterpieces – and Live Flesh a more-than-diverting little thriller – Broken Embraces is a very rare dud from Spain's leading auteur.
   A twisty, knowingly self-referential tale of amour fou set in the world of film-making, it's the story of a blind writer, Mateo Blanco (Lluis Homar). When a millionaire former associate of Blanco dies, the messy aftermath unearths long-buried secrets involving events from a decade before – which we observe via a series of lengthy flashbacks. Back then, Blanco was an acclaimed director working on a movie in which the millionaire's mistress Lena (Cruz) was cast in the central role. Romantic, criminal and creative complications quickly ensue(d).
   There's a long cinematic tradition whereby coincidence-ridden soap-opera-style melodrama is used as a vehicle to explore social, psychological and even philosophical issues – most notably via the oeuvres of Sirk, Fassbinder and, currently, Christian Petzold. Almodovar himself has often worked within this sub-genre, usually with dazzling results. But for some reason Broken Embraces never really feels much more than a soapy melodrama with lofty pretensions – lacking the invention, imagination and audacity that one expects from this particular camp (and from this particular brand of camp.)
   Despite the endless talk of intense passions and the dangerous power of cinema, Broken Embraces itself comes across as an oddly inert, underpowered sort of enterprise – with only occasional flashes of wit, and a characteristically vibrant production-design to keep us going through what turns out to be a decidedly taxing two-hour-plus running-time. Like Almodovar, Cruz is on something akin to autopilot here – she's stuck in what's essentially a supporting role, and is never given anything like the opportunities to dazzle that she so strikingly grasped in Volver. Or even, unlikely as it may seem, in the underwhelming Woody Allen picture.

Neil Young
18th August, 2009
written for next week's issue of Tribune magazine (no edition is published this week)



BROKEN EMBRACES : [4/10] : Los abrazos rotos : Spain 2009 : Pedro ALMODOVAR : 128m (BBFC) : seen at Odeon cinema, Nuneaton, 12th June 2009 – press show – 61st CinemaDays event.

THE HURT LOCKER : [6/10] : USA 2009 : Kathryn BIGELOW : 131m (BBFC) : seen at Odeon cinema, Nuneaton, 12th June 2009 – press show – 61st CinemaDays event.