Your teeth will rattle.

Rating: 9/10 (4 February 2010)

With bone-jarring explosions and a heartfelt theme of overworked, stressed-out soldiers, The Hurt Locker is easily one of the top movies of the year. It's absolutely overflowing with tension as the selfless members of an elite bomb squad in Iraq are constantly besieged by conflict: from civilians, from unseen enemies, and among each other. Jeremy Renner, as the unit's new leader, is in particular fearless and unswerving, with a gutsy tenacity that shakes you to your core.
The Bravo Company is a bomb-disposal unit operating in Baghdad, Iraq. Sgt. William James arrives to head the group after its former leader, Sgt. Thompson, is killed in action. James quickly proves to be a man who moves to the beat of a different drummer, sometimes ignoring communiques from his fellow squad members, throwing caution to the wind. A freewheeling cowboy, James appears on the surface to be all rebellious bluster, but it soon becomes evident that his cockiness masks due caution and an almost unparalleled ability to remain cool under tremendous pressure.
Make no mistake about it. War movies in the past have alternately shown soldiers as gung-ho blocks of wood or somewhat-vulnerable human beings, but few have shown how cool some true leaders can be when things get hot - physically and psychologically.
Picture this: a car is afire in the middle of a town square. A bomb is feared to be inside. A soldier, part of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit, dons a heavy-protection suit and ambles to the fire. He extinguishes the fire with foam and then carefully opens the doors. Then methodically goes through every element of the car to find the bomb's triggering mechanism. This sound pressurized to begin with, doesn't it? Now picture that soldier surrounded by unseen assailants. There are only two other men on his team; their job is to provide cover for him, keeping their eyes and ears peeled for any suspicious activity. Could be that the young man on the neighboring rooftop isn't aiming a camera lens at the fire, he's aiming a gun. Or maybe he's signaling someone else, someone who has the actual trigger. And these aren't just people who are actual terrorists, it's also people who just plain don't want the Americans in their towns anymore.
As James' methodical madness saves the day again and again, his actions have varying effects on his mates. Sgt. Sanborn is a straight-arrow soldier who respects the rules of the game (i.e., he has no time for James' shenanigans), while young Spc. Eldridge seems to take a little more of a shine to his superior. In any case, there is also a side plot of a young boy whom James befriends. Is this boy as genuine as he seems (in his cynical exploitation of soldiers' DVD needs), or is he merely a tool in someone else's shed? One of the underlying messages of the movie is that the soldiers have virtually no one they can really trust; every innocent could be a bringer of death, no matter how young and no matter how fragile.
Before this movie, Kathryn Bigelow was probably best known for movies like Strange Days and Point Break. And being married to James Cameron, whose name you might recognize as well. Both of those movies were pretty solid action movies, but they owed a lot more to their stars - Ralph Fiennes and Patrick Swayze - than to their direction. But Bigelow easily trumps herself here, and possibly all of the movies to come out in 2009 (including a little picture by her ex, Cameron). The Hurt Locker is so well shot (by Barry Ackroyd) and directed that you feel as if you are mere yards away from every potential skull-shaking explosion. The movie is shot in almost a verite' style, so you feel like you're right on top of the action, something that's crucial for intense movies like this (and less so for comic-book action movies like Mission:Impossible).
The Hurt Locker is simply a masterful movie, filled with compelling drama and roaring action. It's never dull, even as our soldiers employ a bit of introspection among each other. It's sentimental but not overwrought; blink and you'll miss the theme of how all this stress affects the characters mentally. Most importantly, movie is packed with such tension that you'll be sweating in the safety of your living room (or theater), barely able to breathe until Sgt. James can disarm one of the many bombs in the movie. The Hurt Locker juxtaposes brutal violence with elegant, although intermittent, bouts of humanity (and not just by the soldiers). It's utterly compelling, fascinating, and highly entertaining, and it's got a great chance to win Best Picture next month.