Excellent engrossing film: you are not exactly seeing a war movie - you are watching highly-skilled professionals at work, literally in front and behind the cameras

Rating: 9/10 (8 October 2009)

It's not so much that director-producer Kathryn Bigelow's film "The Hurt Locker" (with realistic screenplay by journalist and producer Mark Boal) is an intensely suspenseful war action docudrama, but that it is an intimately close look at three professional persons being seriously good at what they do as technicians of a special bomb unit, what their everyday life at work is about, and the time and place happen to be in 2004 Iraq. That is saying a mouthful. Bigelow and her expert film-making team have delivered exactly so: a remarkably perceptive insider view into the workings of the three main characters. Perfect casting of Jeremy Renner as Staff Sgt. William James - the one and only, master of his trade, flawless and grounded yet very much a human man; Anthony Mackie as Sgt. J.T. Sanborn - the stoic, staunch soldier man not at all invulnerable; Brian Geraghty as Specialist Owen Eldridge - the one that brings us all back to earth, the joys and pains.
The storyline and scenarios are complicated, technically difficult, yet the expert attention to the challenging sets and locations, action details definitively show the relentless efforts behind this extraordinary and important film. (More superlatives.) You won't have time thinking of superlatives as the film is so engrossing, and the pace kept going, that you can practically feel the intensity, the pressure, the danger, the anguish, and 'whew!' you get to breathe only when the characters get to breathe.
This film covers every sense of the following words: intensity, intelligence, expertise, exactitude, explosives, details, death, uncertainty, camaraderie, family - yes, it's a mouthful. "The Hurt Locker" is a rare diamond of a film that needs to be seen, experienced and appreciated. Kudos to Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal, and "The Hurt Locker" cast and production team - so impressively real are the sound effects, camera close-up's, sets and extras, editing must be murderously precise!
Note about the film title is found on the official site 'thehurtlocker-movie.com': "In Iraq, it is soldier vernacular to speak of explosions as sending you to 'the hurt locker'." The ever so slight of a Hollywood touch might be attributed to brief appearances related to the plot, that of Guy Pearce (Sgt. Matt Thompson), Ralph Fiennes (Contractor Team Leader), and David Morse (Col. Reed). Good to see their participation and support to Bigelow's film!