Explosive Film

A bomb is a device that destroys lives and property by producing a violent release of energy. It's also a plot device -- and as such is God's gift to filmmakers.

"The Hurt Locker," Kathyrn Bigelow's bomb-squad in Iraq movie, was released in the U.S. on June 28. It's almost earned back its production costs, and has received strong critical approval. (A friend of a friend of mine who's been there says it's bullshit, however. Oh, well -- when were movies not?)

The movie cuts to the chase when it comes to the Hollywood time-bomb cliché. Caught up in the story, we half-want the hero to prevent the explosion and half-want to see what SCTV's "Farm Film Report" referred to as things "blow'd up good, blow'd up real good!"

Unlike a bullet, a bomb is intentionally indiscriminate, truly an "infernal machine," as it was referred to in the past. It's the perfect weapon for terrorists.

Although primitive hand grenades (from the French word for pomegranate, also the source for the specialists who threw them, grenadiers) were used in combat for centuries, it was Chicago's Haymarket Massacre in 1886 that thrust the bomb into public consciousness. Soon the stereotype of the bomb-throwing anarchist was everywhere. It even made its way into "The Muppet Show," in the form of Crazy Harry, a wild-eyed, explosion-happy character who has, post-9/11, been retired.

It influenced the plot of Joseph Conrad's novel 1907 "The Secret Agent," which was in turn adapted by Alfred Hitchcock as the film "Sabotage" in 1936. A key and controversial sequence in that film involves a boy unwitting carting a time bomb with him onto a busy bus.

The director exploits to the fullest the suspense inherent in scene -- cutting from the boy to a nearby clock, to a close-up of the packaged bomb, to the traffic jam that delays his dropping off the package, cutting faster and faster between these elements until the inevitable blast.

Interestingly, the film was unpopular for the reason, Hitchcock later said, that he didn't "give the audience relief" in that sequence by allowing the innocent boy to escape death. Instead, the audience is made aware of the complicity of its desires when no rescue arrives and the boy and those around him vanish with a bang. It was a mistake he would never make again.

Soon the time-bomb cliché was thrown willy-nilly into countless action and thriller films, as a sure-fire (no pun intended) way to hold the audience spellbound. Whether it was Sean Connery in "Goldfinger," Adam West in the original "Batman" feature film or Keanu Reeves in "Speed," the premise was the same -- can our hero (interestingly, never a heroine) prevent mass destruction?

Two movies take this conceit as far as possible. Stephen Hopkins' 1994 "Blown Away" treats everything as a potential bomb or bomb trigger. Every time a light is switched on, every time an appliance is plugged in or a car started, titanic close-ups and thundering, ominous music attempt to keep the viewer in suspense. Unfortunately, the unintended effect is comic.

Twenty years earlier, John Carpenter's first feature film, the sci-fi comedy "Dark Star," posits a thinking bomb that must be talked out of detonating itself through philosophical dialogue. The bomb gets phenomenology wrong, comes to think of itself as God, and immodestly stating "Let there be light," destroys itself and all the other characters.

Only four projects really take a cold, hard look at bomb disposal, the freakish adrenaline rush it gives those who practice it, as well as the toll it takes on them. Besides "The Hurt Locker," two deal with World War II:

"Danger: UXB" is an excellent 13-part British TV series from 1979 chronicling the exploits of a squad of Royal Engineers who defuse unexploded bombs in London during Germany's attacks on the city.

"The Small Back Room" is an underappreciated British gem from 1949, directed by Michael Powell of "Red Shoes" fame. In it, a crippled demolition expert played by David Farrar battles not only booby-trapped German devices, but the bottle as well. Look for excellent early performances by stalwarts such as Michael Gough and Cyril Cusack.

A personal favorite is "Juggernaut," a Richard Lester tour de force from 1974. In it, an extortionist has placed seven bombs aboard a cruise ship that wallows in heavy seas; a crack team is air-dropped onto the vessel to attempt to defuse them.

Lester, best known for his Beatles films, takes a hackneyed premise and, with a script rewritten partially by himself, creates an authentically suspenseful feature. Even minor characters are given a depth and roundness rare at any time. While the police match wits with the bomber himself, the trapped passengers form a cross-section of society, which is carefully observed by the camera.

The cast includes a who's-who of consistently underrated actors who are given room to put forth great performances -- Richard Harris, Omar Sharif, Shirley Knight, Ian Holm, a very young Anthony Hopkins, Freddie Jones, David Hemmings, Roy Kinnear, and Julian Glover. If you've not seen it, do -- it's the best of the lot by far.

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