Where to buy:
Amazon has The Hurt Locker DVD on SALE now for the lowest price anywhere.

Review:
Katherine Bigelow seems an unlikely choice for the directorial helm of Matt Boal's script for a war-themed independent film, "The Hurt Locker" (and the title's unlikely, too).

Boal was last seen penning "In the Valley of Elah" , in which he turned a laudable screenplay from a hauntingly true story he had written for Playboy. I personally think that Boal was arm-wrestled into many of the aspects of the screenplay by powerful director and co-writer Paul Haggis during "In the Valley". That, in fact, might be why Boal sought out someone who was more concerned about seeing the realism of the war in Iraq as it is, and not trying to politicize a story. The story, simply, is one of every day Americans confronted by the need to put their lives on the line in a country that is as hellish as the Iraq in 2004, in the wake of our great adventure there.

Hand-held camera shoots in "The Hurt Locker" give the gritty, real appearance of Iraq in the film. Bigelow shot in Jordan, when she could not overcome obstacles to filming in Kuwait, and the camera scenes can make one weary, in 137 minutes of film, But most of the film is so gripping, and the scenes portrayed do have a tendency to make everyone involved weary, weary of the war. Bigelow and Boal don't have to preach that war is hell, they just portray it in the realism of the film. We get it.

The story line involves a 3 person EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) unit, charged with finding and clearing explosive devices that seemingly litter the landscape in Iraq. I've done some fiction and non-fiction reading about bomb techs in metropolitan areas in the US, and recognize that the specialty is populated with people who live their lives knowing that the next assignment could cost them those self-same lives. Not a vocation for the weak at heart. As the film begins, the trio in the EOD Hummer includes the bomb tech, Sgt. Thompson (Guy Pearce in a good cameo), the driver, Sgt. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie, largely unsung before this film), and the Specialist, who acts as the lookout and the turret gun in the Hummer, Eldridge (Brian Geraghty). The three work well together.

In shocking and violent order, Thompson breathes his last, and is replaced with Staff Sgt James (Jeremy Renner who was cast as Dahmer early in his career in the film of the same name. Renner has kicked around film and TV since then - he appeared as a lead in "The Unusuals" in this TV season, opposite Amber Tamblyn. It was not renewed.). As James, Renner has turned in a performance so finally nuanced, that his name will no doubt come up at Oscar time.

Sanborn and Eldridge don't know what to make of the new bomb tech, who is silent and somewhat reckless, a contrast to the confident Thompson, who was a team player. Over the course of their time with him, you can sense the two of them swinging into his rhythm, learning to anticipate his quirky style and the aplomb with which he's handled 800 explosive devices. Attribute this to the strong delivery Renner brings to the "silent cowboy" type. The unit has only 39 days left on their tour.

With Eldridge, and to a lesser degree, Sanborn, your sense is that they are waiting on the edges of their chairs for the tour to be over, so that they can escape with their lives and revisit the hellish assignment in dreams. With James, you get the feel that the 39 days is not enough; that only when he is pursuing his special trade does he feel at one with the world. There are sidelines to James' story; one in his relationship with a young Iraqi boy, and one in his inability to shoulder his homelife with wife and young son.

Because of their vocation, and because of the reality of the fear in the Iraqi streets, the intensity in this film makes time pass swiftly, absorbs the viewer in the reality. The actual bombs are stark in their violence, the feel of the streets is that of underlying deception. There is a scene in the last half of the film where the unit encounters a group of contractors (cameos by Ralph Fiennes and David Morse), that potentially could have come out in editing, but it serves as a contrast of what the different dangers are when EOD units are exposed in the open desert, and not in the city streets.

And "the hurt locker" of the title? It stands for a collection kept by James of items found at the bomb scenes; items that immediately call each scene to mind in the collection of nightmares that he's grown addicted to. And he is addicted; never doubt that.

Conclusion: Realistic and timely, "The Hurt Locker" may be one of the best movies you can see this year.

Where to buy:
Amazon has The Hurt Locker DVD on SALE now for the lowest price anywhere.