2009 Oscar Nominees - The Hurt Locker  
| The Hurt Locker is intense, adrenaline pumping, and one of the most realistic films of the year. When you read reviews that say “heart-stopping” or “edge of your seat thriller” or “non stop action” they are usually hyperboles talking about certain scenes in big action movies. However, these three cliche sayings are made for and 100% describe a movie like The Hurt Locker. For the entire running time, the film is a relentless assault on all your senses. At the end of the film not only will you be immensely satisfied, but you will feel drained, as if you yourself had been disarming those bombs.
In the film we follow a small bomb squad whose sole duty is to locate, deactivate and dispose of live bombs. What is so great about the film is that no made up tension or extra ingredients have to be put in to make this film so charged. The fact that these guys are in Iraq, and trying to get rid of the threat of bombs, has all we need as an audience to be completely involved. The movie is a force of nature, as throughout the two hour running time, we are barely given any time to breathe. Even in the quieter moments with just the characters talking to each other, there in an underlying nervousness that you know could explode at any second, and sometimes does. None of the characters are at ease, they are always at a certain level, and maybe they have to be considering the line of work they are in.
Yes this is an Iraq war movie, but the film never panders to easy answers. It never picks a side, or makes an obtuse political statement. We are just placed in the day to day lives of men doing the most dangerous job in the world, and every emotion, feeling and stance that comes out of that is what we are given.
Every actor is perfectly cast and the three main characters that we are taken along with are especially fleshed out. Both Anthony Mackie as the by the book Sergeant JT Sanborn, and Brian Geraghty as the nervous and overdramatic specialist Owen Eldridge give performances that should go a long way in ensuring long and fruitful careers for both actors. There are three cameos by big name actors (Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes, and David Morse) that are absolutely radiant. What makes them so inspired though is not that they are so significant, or scene stealing or game changers but for the exact opposite. That they are simply there as part of a great whole, as characters that drop in and out of the movie with no real impact (except for one) but never make the scene about themselves. The realism in these cameos and that such talented actors would take small parts is a credit to the kind of movie the director Kathryn Bigelow was trying to make.
Finally, Jeremy Renner as Staff Sergeant William James, a lunatic who seems to have no regard for his life but is the most talented disarmer the army has is a revelation. When he is on the battlefield around colleagues he seems to be careless, and a wildman looking for a thrill, though we see the care and intelligence it takes for him to do his job. When he is alone in his room he is thoughtful, lonely and depressed. But what really makes the performance a home run are the scenes at home with his family where we see just how out of place, and lost this man who only knows how to do one thing in life is.
Bigelow has made a movie that is more thrilling than any action movie to come out this summer, is more insightful into the mind of soldiers than any Iraq war movie has been before, and is more unpredictable than any twists or turns guaranteed by a movie this year. She has made one of the best films of the year.
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