The Hurt Locker is carrying a lot of the spotlight lately, and as with any success you will find someone clinging to your coat tails trying to get a piece of it too.
Seems that Sgt Jeffery Sarver, a bomb squad tech who participated in research Mark Boal used while writing an article, says that the character portrayed in Hurt Locker is HIM and he was never compensated for his story.
Sarver alleges that virtually all of the situations portrayed in the film were occurrences involving him that were observed and documented by Mark Boal, who followed Saver around for 30 days back in 2004 in order to write a Playboy article. Boal then used that article as a jumping-off point for the film’s screenplay.
Boal says that the charges are baseless. “I think Sarver is a brave soldier and a good guy,” he said. “Like a lot of soldiers, he identifies with the film, but the character I wrote is fictional. The film is a work of fiction inspired by many people’s stories. I talked to easily over 100 soldiers during my research.”
When you subject yourself to a researcher who you KNOW is there to study you (and peers) for a role, can you really be surprised if something you said, how you acted or even phrases you coin get used? Its not like this guy posed as a soldier and secretively took notes observing their roles. They knew why he was there. He knew he would be quoted for the article (which later became the basis for the screenplay)
Sarver claims to have coined the phrase Hurt Locker, and wants credit for that too. But when slang gets used that is picked up during research, should they get paid for it? This just smells of a money grab to me. Hurt Locker is getting a LOT of attention right now and it can be hurt by negative publicity so this guy suddenly says the film is almost entirely a film about him, not based on people like him. But actually him.
I don’t see much coming of this. Just a desperate ploy for a guy to benefit financially from the film’s success. If the film wasn’t getting this attention, do you honestly think this guy would have come forward about it?
