Rejecting any formal narrative, The Hurt Locker instead focuses on the last few days of rotation for a bomb disposal unit in Baghdad. Jeremy Renner's Staff Sergeant William James is drafted to the team after their previous commanding officer perishes in a preventable explosion. James' instinctive, adrenalised style agitates the reeling team, previously used to cautious book plays. His drive is puzzling through the improvised explosive devices by hand, neutralising the threat at source rather than retreating for a controlled detonation. He wants to beat the bomb makers by undoing their work. The defusals are fraught affairs, jets relentlessly scream overhead, and any civilian gawker could easily be a plain clothes sniper. James keeps his team deep in the danger zone, confident his grandstanding deconstructions will defer interference. This apparent thrill-seeking is underscored by some rigid emotional ethics. James is a father, and seeks to protect, sublimating his feelings for his estranged family by forming a rapid connection with a cheeky street vendor. Unlike many of his colleagues, James sees the Iraqis around him as people, rather than troublesome aliens. This isn't the entirety of why he does what he does, James takes an almost sexual pleasure in locking horns and thwarting detonations, but it is part of the make-up that pushes him on.
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