Hurt Locker in legal dispute

THE Oscar-winning director and screenwriter of The Hurt Locker are asking a judge to dismiss an Iraq war veteran’s lawsuit alleging the film is based on him.

Lawyers for director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal argue in papers filed in Los Angeles that Master Sergeant Jeffrey Sarver cannot prove he is the basis for the bomb technician in the film.

Boal was embedded with M/Sgt Sarver’s unit in Iraq in 2004 and wrote a story The Man In The Bomb Suit, which profiled the West Virginia native.

Boal writes that he interviewed more than 50 military personnel who work in bomb disposal units and that the character is a composite of many of them.