The Hurt Locker/Headscratchers

• What was up with the sniper battle? The scene had me scratching my head for a couple of reasons.(1) Why did nobody come to help the good guys while they were pinned down? The British contractors called for help, and were told to sit tight. By the end of this scene, many hours had passed but they were still alone. (2) What were the Iraqi snipers doing the whole time? After they quickly kill the first three Brits, they don't fire again. The whole time Sanborn is getting set up with the Barret, and while they were cleaning the bullets, the enemy never fires another shot. When that random insurgent sneaks up behind everyone, he just sights on the good guys but doesn't fire, giving Eldritch all day to decide to shoot. (3) How many enemies were there exactly? It looked like there were two on the roof of the shack, two inside, and one prone guy a few meters away from the shack. The number of enemies killed didn't look the same as the number of enemies total.
  • 1: Yes, the Brits called for help. No one came because the EOD team didn't call for assistance; Eldridge was too busy with security, James was on the scope, and Sanborn was sniping. None of them had time or thought to radio in assistance.
  • 2: The sniper does fire another couple of shots, but he never gets close. Apparently, after Sanborn started returning fire more effectively, they became more intimidated about firing shots. The insurgent who snuck up on them appeared to be setting up to fire, but he didn't have a good shot because he lacked optics. He was probably trying to make sure he had a good shot before revealing his position, not realizing he'd been spotted already.
  • 3: There was one insurgent left after the sniper was killed (his spotter). He probably got smart and remained in hiding after the rest of his friends were killed, or took off behind the hill behind the building. Insurgents manage to break contact all the time, so this is nothing unusual, especially as there were only three soldiers and two contractors pinned down behind the berm.
• Was Eldridge shot by an insurgent or by James during the rescue?
  • I gathered that he was shot by James. When he's jumped, we only hear one burst of gunfire (Eldridge killing an insurgent) and then James and Sanborn jumped the remainder when they were dragging him away.

• Didn't Beckham survive? The kid at the end offering Jones DVD s and soccer sure looks and sounds like him, but a lot of the main page tropers seem to think that was actually him with the body bomb. Was the kid at the end a different boy, a hallucination, or actually Beckham?
  • I was scratching my head at that too; I think it is Beckham at the end. James seems to have convinced himself that the dead boy was him, and doesn't notice. He's clearly traumatized by the experience.
  • That kid is Beckham. James recognizes him. He's not in shock or anything else. He just doesn't want to get close to anyone after that experience with the kid who he thought was Beckham's body.

• After James disables the car bomb, an older man, apparently a superior officer, congratulates him and calls him "hot shit". Now, I don't know anything about military hierarchy and whatnot and haven't seen the film in a while, but logically, it would have made more sense for that superior officer to shove his boot up James' ass for putting his own life (and possibly the lives of his men) in danger needlessly, for cutting off communications, and probably for a bunch of other small things. Am I missing something here?
  • That officer was from the National Guard IIRC. The implication was that he was a weekend warrior who was impressed by this recklessness, rather than a professional who should have reprimanded James.
  • I think that scene is meant to demonstrate that higher-ranking officers encourage the kind of thing that goes against common sense to most people and that the high-ranking officers are just war-mongers who don't value human life as much as they value valor.