'The Hurt Locker' review

Jeremy Renner (Credit: Summit)

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Think being a soldier is dangerous enough? The hazards never end for the volunteer members of the Army’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal squad. They’re the ones called in to disarm the bombs and IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) threatening soldiers and citizens during wartime. This story unfolds in Iraq during the summer of 2004, when brash Staff Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner) takes over a team including the more grounded Sergeant J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and younger Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty).

The buzz: Already a critics’ favorite after celebrated screenings at last fall’s Venice and Toronto film festivals, “The Hurt Locker” also scored indie Spirit award nominations for Renner and Mackie. Plus, there’s been a fair amount of hype over the fact that Kathryn Bigelow, the director of this macho military flick, is—gasp!—a woman. (She’s an action specialist who counts “Point Break” and “Strange Days” among her credits.) Now the fate of film lies with audiences, who so far have not shown much enthusiasm for films involving Iraq or the Middle East (even good ones, like “In the Valley of Elah,” which was based on reporting by this film’s writer, Mark Boal).

The verdict: If the mindless assault of “Terminator Salvation” or “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” fills your need for a raging action film you might want to pass on this thoughtful alternative. Otherwise don’t be afraid to dive right in for a harrowing, credible and astonishingly made portrait of bravery and brutality. Bigelow’s visceral approach places the audience right in the middle of the action and never lets up. Despite the headline-friendly setting and opening quote that “War is a drug,” there’s no blatant political agenda here. It simply wouldn’t gel with the tight procedural focus on what’s required to succeed at one of the world’s most dangerous jobs. The movie’s single-minded vision has its downsides. While the soldiers’ physical conditions are vividly etched, the emotional and psychological toll the work takes is sketchier. And when the film tries to a make a point, it can be a bit pat (“War is a drug” indeed). Not that any of that matters in the life and death situation of defusing a bomb. And it’s the way Bigelow captures that sensation that’s undeniably worth seeing.

Did you know? The script was inspired by several weeks Boal spent embedded with an Army bomb squad in Baghdad in 2004. He estimates “for every bomb that exploded in the city, there were probably ten or fifteen that didn’t” because of the squads.

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