Minus a short-lived cameo by Ralph Fiennes in a desert gunfight, Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker is a war film that often feels very much like a documentary. Following the three men who comprise an Explosives Ordinance Disposal (EOD) team stationed in Iraq, it is essentially a look at what they do and how it affects them. We get to witness their dismantling of a number of different kinds of bombs. We see the different threats and dangers they must deal with each time they receive a call. We stand beside them as they experience both the relief of success and the tragedy of failure. And we look into their eyes as they each process it all in very different ways.

The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug. --Chris Hedges

And so begins, and essentially frames, The Hurt Locker. Whether war is right or wrong is not necessarily the point. Rather, it is about how easily war can become addiction and how quickly that addiction can take priority over all else. And standing front and center as its token addict is Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner).

From the get-go, James goes into his calls with no fear. He sheds his protective gear so that he can be more comfortable. He continues cutting a bomb's wires even after everyone else has run for cover. He has the bragging rights of successfully dismantling over 873 bombs. And although his renegade style at first creates conflict with his team members Sergeant J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), as time goes on, he proves himself to be a strong leader, one who usually puts the safety of others above his own, and one who brings out the courage and strength the team needs to make the decisions and take the actions that will keep them alive.

But the thing about addiction is that it isn't just born of substances and behaviors that are undebatably bad. The problem begins when even the most innocuous of pursuits or activities becomes all we know, all we consider, and all we live for. While Sanborn and Eldridge approach each new job with a reasonable amount of fear, caution, and respect for their own lives, it is as if James has no consideration for his life whatsoever. You can call it brave. You can call it sacrificial. Or you could look at it as the same mindset with which a crack addict will sell every part of his or her body just to get another hit.

In The Hurt Locker, you could even say the series of defusions are like the spiral down into an addictive abyss. In the beginning, it is easy, satisfying, just another job. With each new job, the task becomes more and more frantic, higher risk, and more affecting on James and his team. After one job, James takes it upon himself to avenge a young boy killed by a bomb&ellips; only to quickly discover that both the basis of his logic and his conclusions aren't right. On the next job, his determination to catch the perpetrator pulls his entire team into much more danger than they signed up for. And while the statement isn't blatant, in James we are given the United States, a country that may have gone into the war in Iraq with the best intentions, and may still be doing some good, but is now addicted to the point that much of its good stands to easily be negated by a solitary, compulsive focus.

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