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| Tom Wood as Private Nash in Under Siege |
I want to give short tribute to the little guy in big films, action films to be exact; the extra, the side character, the nervous bloke who you just know isn't gonna make it through the film. You all know whom I'm talking about, so let's take some time to think about their story. For all the accolades it's received, watching The Hurt Locker (2008) reminded me more of Hollywood action movies (erm...because it is, I'm looking at the DVD cover right now and emblazoned across the top is 'FROM THE DIRECTOR OF POINT BREAK'. Need I say more?) than any serious study of warfare's damaging psychological effects, and I'd like to take the time to mention, with a dash of seriousness and a good helping of whimsy, one of it's scenes.
What really demonstrated the action facet of the film to me was the sequence where the EOD unit come across a gaggle of British mercenaries. Apart from the highlighting a hilarious stateside point of view of the English as greedy and stupid (not that we aren't, we most definitely are but...'kettle' 'black' 'pot' 'calling', there must be something I can do with those words...?) the scene fixed itself into my head for another reason. It really shines a light on how people are ear-marked for death in Hollywood action films; namely demonstrating any sign of weakness. There must be a whole host of extra's over the years who've been dispatched in various ways for playing nameless characters who's penchant for being below average at their job means they'll be 'assuming room temperature' preeetty soon; the sort of guys who would get a bad bi-monthly appraisal if they lived to actually attend one. In this one scene from The Hurt Locker a rather large bloke is immediately singled out as 'The Wrench Man' because he threw his wrench at someone and consequently this is the reason why the Brits don't have a wrench to fix their car. He is mocked ('You know you can shoot people here, you don't have to use a wrench!'), and then shown to be rather useless at using the wrench the US troopers subsequently supply him with, something his curt boss has no time for ('What's the problem with the wrench? Come on!'), sounding like an impatient market trader. Then as The Wrench Man fetches a bigger wrench he is mercilessly shot in the back; his large body thuds to the ground. Thus is the catalyst for the ensuing firefight with faceless Al-Qaeda villians. And we see it coming from a mile off: the long ponderous silences, the seemingly pointless focusing on poor, unaware Wrench Man shuffling to and fro between truck and tank, but most of all because the film draws attention to how lame he is at his job. How much better would I be in this situation? Not much, I'm sure.
It happens again (or should I say previously) in the Steven Seagal vehicle Under Seige (1992) (a far superior film to The Hurt Locker for it's lack of pretension). Now if anyone was ever earmarked for a bullet to the head it's Private Nash. Okay so at least he get's a name, but look at this guy! As soon as the oversized Commander Krill impels him to guard the imprisoned Casey Ryback he's gulping down his adam's apple like a wide-eyed cartoon character. How did this pitiful guy ever get in the army? Which cruel bastard let him in? He should have been turned away at the recruitment door: 'Go to work in a library son, you'll help America better that way.' He maintains guard over Seagal's Chef-cum-Navy Seal-cum-strange flippy/wavy knife expert, who Krill has imprisoned in the kitchen's walk-in freezer and charged Nash with watching over him. But it's clear Nash is bringing a new meaning to the word 'naive', oblivious as he is to the fact that Commander Krill is the 'psychopath', not Ryback. Private Nash probably doesn't even know what to do in a kitchen, let alone use a rifle. No, seriously, he doesn't, he manages to burn Ryback's pies by ignoring his pleas of 'Get ma pies out the over!' After this pie burning incident has clearly demonstrated Nash's incapacity to perform any basic act or have faith in the right people, it's only a short while before he's lifeless in a mahogany coffin draped with the stars and stripes while his mother sobs: 'Why didn't he become a librarian? He such a quiet boy, he had such a love of books!'
And I think this is clearly where the problem lies: these guys are in the wrong jobs, (Nash by the way is shot in the back of the head by two of Commander Krill's merciless mercenaries). There is no question about it; where was the genuine, good quality career advice when they needed it? I mean, take Wrench Man in The Hurt Locker, was someone going to tell him he should get some sort of qualification in engineering before he becomes a full-blown mercenary in Afghanistan? At least get a Saturday job in a garage! And Private Nash, did nothing click in your head when doing press-ups at boot camp, adam's apple boinging up and down, with a man screaming into your face something about being 'lower that a worm!' and 'more useless than a balloon filled with shit!', and you thinking 'IhatethisIhatethisIhatethis', and wishing you were snuggled up with a dog-eared copy of 'To Kill A Mockingbird' rather than a cold gun every night?
But an even greater tragedy is that Wrench Man and Nash probably weren't even that awful; I'm sure Nash worked hard in training, he looks in tip top physical shape, he probably had a mean aim when hunting deer back home with Pa (whom I suspect pushed him into the armed forces against his will), and The Wrench Man follows his bosses orders diligently, trying to do the best he can. But they can't handle the pressure, because, I'll say it again, they're in the wrong jobs!
I feel bad for these guys because I think they're a bit like me really, or, to put it another way, I'm a bit like them. If I was in their situation, trying to unscrew bolts in a war zone or standing guard while oblivious to the hostile takeover going on around me, I would most probably be a goner fairly sharpish. So I'm sick of rooting for a film's main character. Whether he be the underdog or the loser or the unlikely hero. And I'm sick of rooting for the villian as well, the bad guy you love to hate, or the anti-hero. Why can't we root for the side character's in an action film? Why can't we learn a little bit more of their story? This is a tribute to those poor guys whose sole purpose in the film is to die, who in their one scene unknowingly display their inherent weakness as a herald for almost immediate death. Their demise is short and brutal and merely a catalyst for a fight to take place. Let's pay homage to those guys. Because in reality, in a film like The Hurt Locker or Under Siege, these are the ones I can relate to, these butter fingers, these foolish clumsy people clearly in the wrong profession, clunking about, fumbling and getting things wrong, paying for it with a bullet to the head, I'm happy to say that that is me. Men of honour: nervous, sweaty, clumsy, frail, unimaginative, foolish, dim, fidgety men of honour, I salute you. Cue bugle.
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| Aforementioned bugle |
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