Hollywood film about Iraq war to begin filming

Filming was set to begin next week on "The Hurt Locker," a Hollywood drama starring
Jeremy Renner, seen here in February 2007, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty,
about the travails of a US army unit beset by bombers and snipers in Iraq.[AFP]

Filming was set to begin next week on "The Hurt Locker," a Hollywood drama about the travails of a US army unit beset by bombers and snipers in Iraq, US entertainment media reported Tuesday.

The movie, starring Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty and directed by Katherine Bigelow, follows an elite army explosive ordinance disposal team in present-day Baghdad.

Filming will take place in Jordan and Kuwait on the movie, which is inspired by actual events as well as recently declassified information, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

"It's the first movie about the Iraq War that purports to show the experience of the soldiers," script writer Mark Boal told the Hollywood Reporter from Jordan.

"We wanted to show the kinds of things that soldiers go through that you can't see on CNN, and I don't mean that in a censorship-conspiracy way. I just mean the news doesn't actually put photographers in with units that are this elite."

Boal added: "Most war movies don't come out until the war was over."

"It's really exciting for me, coming out of the world of journalism, to have a movie come out about a conflict while the conflict is still going on," he told the Hollywood Reporter.