Soldier claims The Hurt Locker is based on his life
A soldier who was stationed in Iraq is claiming that Oscar favourite The Hurt Locker is not a work of fiction but a transposition of events from his life onto film. Master sergeant Geoffrey Sarver has filed a lawsuit with New Jersey’s district court claiming that the film is an exploitation of his experiences by a greedy movie industry. He claims that the screenplay was written by Mark Boal after he was commissioned to write an article for Playboy magazine and had been embedded with a US army unit in Iraq. Sgt Sarver claims that he spoke at length with Boal whilst he was with the bomb disposal unit in 2005 and that he was even the one that used that phrase ‘the hurt locker’.
Sgt Sarver’s lawyer Geoffrey Fieger claims that his client is immediately recognizable from the screenplay and that the only fiction in the film is that claim that it is in fact a work of fiction. The main character in the film is called Will James and Sgt Sarver is demanding that the opening credits announce that the character is based on him. Fieger claims that the revelation has only just come to light because they wanted to wait until all of the academy’s votes had been cast. He said that they did not want to influence the outcome by making the claims sooner as the better the film does the better it will be for Sgt Sarver.
This latest blow to The Hurt Locker comes after producer Nicholas Chartier was banned from the Oscar ceremony for lobbying academy members not to vote for rival film Avatar.