THE HURT LOCKER

During the early months of the post-invasion period in Iraq, Sergeant First Clas
s William James becomes the new team leader of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (E
OD) unit with the U.S. Army's Bravo Company, replacing Staff Sergeant Thompson,
who was killed by a remote-detonated improvised explosive device (IED) in Baghda
d. He joins Sergeant J.T. Sanborn and Specialist Owen Eldridge, whose jobs are t
o communicate with their team leader via radio inside his bombsuit, and provide
him with rifle cover while he examines an IED. James's insistence on approaching
a suspected IED without first sending in a bomb disposal robot during their fir
st mission together lead Sanborn and Eldridge to consider him "reckless". Back a
t Camp Victory, James befriends Beckham, a young Iraqi boy who works for a local
merchant operating at the base, selling pirated DVD movies to the soldiers. The
team is next called out to the United Nations building in Baghdad, where a park
ed car has a large bomb in the trunk. While James intensively studies the intric
ate bomb, Sanborn and Eldridge provide him with cover. Sanborn becomes increasin
gly concerned about three men watching them from a minaret and another filming t
hem from a nearby rooftop. With the building evacuated, he suggests to James tha
t the they pull out and let a team of engineers come disarm the bomb. James igno
res and angers Sanborn by removing his radio headset and his bomb suit, and rema
ins with the car until he disarms the device.
While returning from detonating bombs in the desert, the EOD team encounter a Br
itish private military company. They soon come under enemy attack, and three of
the British mercenaries are killed in the ensuing firefight, which ends after Sa
nborn and James shoot the last of the insurgent snipers. For their next mission,
the team heads to a warehouse to retrieve unexploded ordnance. While securing t
he warehouse, James discovers the dead body of a young boy who has been surgical
ly implanted with an unexploded bomb. James is sure that it is Beckham, while Sa
nborn and Eldridge are not entirely certain. That night, James forces the mercha
nt for whom Beckham worked to drive him to Beckham's house. Upon entering the ho
use to which he is brought, James encounters an Iraqi professor and demands to k
now who was responsible for turning Beckham into a "body bomb". The professor th
inks James is a CIA agent and calmly invites him to sit down as a guest of his h
ousehold. A confused James is then forced out of the house by the man's wife, an
d sneaks back into Camp Victory with the help of a sympathetic guard. That same
night, Eldridge is accidentally shot in the leg during a mission in which the EO
D team successfully tracks down and kills two bomb makers. The next morning, Jam
es is approached by Beckham, who is alive and well. Much to Beckham's confusion,
he is completely ignored by James. Eldridge blames James for his injury, claimi
ng James unnecessarily put his life at risk just so that he could have an "adren
aline fix", referring to Sanborn's suggestion that the mission, which James had
ordered, would be better suited for an infantry platoon.
With only two days left on their current tour, James and Sanborn are called in t
o assist in a situation where a man was forced to wander into a military checkpo
int with a time-bomb strapped to his chest. James cannot remove the bomb nor dis
arm it in time, and is forced to flee before the bomb goes off. On the ride back
to the base, Sanborn becomes emotional and confesses to James that he can no lo
nger cope with the pressure of being in EOD, and relishes the prospect of finall
y leaving Iraq and starting a family. James is next seen back at home with his w
ife and child, visibly bored with civilian life. One night he has an internal mo
nologue in the form of speaking aloud to his infant son, where he says that ther
e is only "one thing" that he knows he loves. He is next seen back in Iraq, read
y to serve another year as part of an EOD team with Delta Company.

JARHEAD SYNOSPIS
The film begins with voice-over narration on a black screen, as Anthony Swofford
(Jake Gyllenhaal), waxes philosophically about a soldier whose hands forever re
member the grip of a rifle, whatever else they do in life. Swofford is then show
n in a U.S. Marine Corps boot camp, being brutalized by a drill instructor in a
scene reminiscent of Full Metal Jacket. After finishing boot, "Swoff" is dispatc
hed to Camp Pendleton in 1989, where he is subjected to a cruel joke played on h
im by the senior Marines. This involves branding onto him the initials of the Un
ited States Marine Corps, USMC, with a hot iron. This is a popular tattoo amongs
t Marines. He faints upon sight of the iron. After regaining consciousness, he r
ealizes to his relief that the senior Marines had switched the hot iron with ano
ther room temperature iron. He is greeted coolly by Troy (Peter Sarsgaard), who
says to him, "Welcome to the Suck."
Swofford comes across the charismatic Staff Sergeant Sykes (Jamie Foxx), a Marin
e "lifer" who invites Swofford to his Scout Sniper (formally the Surveillance an
d Target Acquisition) course. After arduous training sessions that claim the lif
e of one recruit, he becomes a sniper and is paired with Troy as his spotter. Sh
ortly after, Kuwait is invaded by Iraq and Swofford's unit is dispatched to the
Persian Gulf as a part of Operation Desert Shield. Although the Marines are very
eager to see some combat action, they are forced to hydrate, wait, patrol the n
earby area and orient themselves to the arid environment. When some field report
ers appear, Sykes forces his unit to demonstrate their NBC suits in a game of Am
erican football, even under the 112 degree heat. While the cameras roll, the gam
e develops into a rowdy dog pile, with some Marines playfully miming sex acts. S
ykes, embarrassed by his platoon's rude manners and poor discipline, removes the
cameras and crew from the area; the Marines are later punished by being forced
to build and take down a massive pyramid of sandbags in a rainy night.
During the long wait, some of the Marines fear their wives and girlfriends at ho
me will be unfaithful. A public board displays the photos of women who have ende
d their relationships with members of the unit. Swofford himself begins to suspe
ct that his girlfriend is, or will soon be, unfaithful. The most public and humi
liating of these befalls Dettman (Marty Papazian), who discovers an innocent loo
king copy of The Deer Hunter on VHS sent from his wife, which the men are all se
ated to watch, is actually a homemade pornographic movie tape of her having sex
with their neighbor, apparently made as revenge for Dettman's own promiscuity.
During an impromptu Christmas party, Fergus (Brian Geraghty), a member of Swoffo
rd's unit, accidentally sets fire to a tent and a crate of flares. Swofford gets
the blame because he was supposed to be on watch, but had Fergus sit in for him
. As a consequence, Swofford is demoted from Lance Corporal (E-3) to Private (E-
1) and is forced to undertake the degrading task of burning excrement. The punis
hments, the heat and the boredom, combined with suspicions of his girlfriend's i
nfidelity and feelings of isolation, temporarily drive Swofford to the point of
mental breakdown. He threatens and nearly shoots fellow Marine Fergus.
After the long stand in the desert, Operation Desert Storm, the coalition force'
s ground campaign, begins, and the Marines are dispatched to the Saudi-Kuwaiti b
order. Briefly before the action begins, Swofford learns from Sykes that Troy co
ncealed his criminal record when enlisting and will be discharged after the end
of hostilities. Following an accidental air attack from friendly forces, the Mar
ines advance through the desert, facing no enemies on the ground. Casualties are
taken when friendly fire from an A-10 close air support aircraft hits U.S. vehi
cles. The troops march through the Highway of Death, strewn with burnt vehicles
and remains of charred bodies, a product of the bombing campaign. Later, the Mar
ines encounter burning oil wells, lit by the retreating Iraqis, and they attempt
to dig sleeping holes as a rain of crude oil falls from the sky. Before they ca
n finish them Sykes orders the squad to move to where the wind prevents the oil
from raining on them. While digging new sleeping holes, Swoff discovers Fowler h
as defiled an Iraqi corpse which drives Swoff to the point of wanting to fight h
im. However he merely takes the body and buries it somewhere else.
Swofford and Troy are finally given a combat mission. Their order is to shoot tw
o Iraqi officers, supposedly located in a control tower at a battle-damaged airp
ort. The two take up positions in a deserted building, but moments after Swoffor
d pinpoints one of the officers in his sights, another team of Marines appears a
nd calls in an air strike. Troy, desperate to make a kill, pleads with the offic
er in charge (Dennis Haysbert) to let them take the shot. When his pleas are den
ied, Troy breaks down in a fit of despair and weeps. Moments later the airport i
s bombed by U.S. warplanes. Swofford and Troy linger at the site in a daze, losi
ng track of time and missing their pick-up. With night falling, they try to navi
gate the desert but get lost. Distant cries in the darkness frighten them, and a
s they begin to sense that the sounds are coming from beyond a ridge, they ready
their weapons and prepare to descend. They see an encampment in the distance, b
ut on closer look they recognize it as their base camp, and the sounds as Marine
voices. The war is over, they learn, and scores of Marines celebrate this amids
t a bonfire. In a climactic scene Swofford tells Troy he never fired his rifle,
getting a response of "You can do it now". He then fires a round in the air from
his sniper rifle and the other Marines, who also never had a chance to fire the
ir weapons, follow suit, emptying magazines into the night sky.
On returning home the troops parade through the towns in a jovial celebration of
victory. The mood is disturbed when a dishevelled Vietnam veteran, possibly suf
fering from the memories of the conflict, jumps into their bus, and congratulate
s them all. Soon after their return home, Swofford and his comrades are discharg
ed and go on with their separate lives. Swofford returns home to his girlfriend,
but discovers her with a new boyfriend. Fowler (Evan Jones) is seen to be spend
ing time with a girl at a bar, Kruger (Lucas Black) is seen in a corporate board
room, Escobar (Laz Alonso) as a supermarket employee, Cortez (Jacob Vargas) as a
father of three kids, and Sykes continuing his service as a Master Sergeant in
Operation Iraqi Freedom. An unspecified amount of time later, Swofford learns of
Troy's death during a surprise visit from Fergus. He attends the funeral, meets
some of his old friends, and afterwards he reminisces about the effects of the
war.