In
Iraq, a U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit is
forced to play a dangerous game of cat and mouse in the chaos of
war in a city where everyone is a potential enemy and every
object could be a deadly bomb. Jeremy Renner plays the leader of
the EOD team, as he contends with not only defusing bombs in the
backdrop of a war, but also the psychological and emotional
strain that it inflicts
"In the summer of 2004, Sergeant J.T.
Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian
Geraghty) of Bravo Company are at the volatile center of the
war, part of a small counterforce specifically trained to handle
the homemade bombs, or Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), that
account for more than half of American hostile deaths and have
killed thousands of Iraqis. A high-pressure, high-stakes
assignment, the job leaves no room for mistakes, as they learn
when they lose their team leader on a mission. "
Lead actor Jeremy Renner, who trained with real EOD teams
prior to shooting the film, says that great pains were taken to
ensure the film's authenticity. According to Renner, shooting
the film in the Middle East contributed to this. "There were two
by fours with nails being dropped from two-story buildings that
hit me in the helmet and they were throwing rocks... we got shot
at a few times while we were filming," Renner said. "When you
see it, you're gonna feel like you've been in war."