Adrenaline-filled movie with fantastic acting skills

Rating: 9/10 (27 April 2010)

Kathryn Bigelow, director of The Hurt Locker, has a peculiar ability to capture the adrenaline in an unbearably tense situation, and she displays this unique skill throughout this compelling front line drama. In fact, Mark Boal's blunt, economic screenplay (based on his own experiences embedded in a bomb squad) largely abstains from the politics around the Iraqi conflict in favor of the escalating madness infiltrating an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit. Their unpopular job is to dispose of undetonated bombs in the war-torn streets of Baghdad during the post-invasion period in 2004. The story's focus is on the new team leader, Sergeant First Class William James (Jeremy Renner), who depends on the support of Sergeant J.T. Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), who are assigned to communicate with James through a radio inside his bomb-suit and provide him with rifle cover while he examines improvised explosive devices (IED's).
Sanborn and Eldridge are still disturbed from the sudden fatality of their previous leader, Staff Sergeant Matt Thompson (Guy Pearce), when the far more reckless James upsets their established procedures with his unusual antics. James turns out to be a more complex figure than his original fearless indicates, and Sanborn and Eldridge respond by questioning their own perspective on risk versus responsibility. A key factor in understanding James' psyche is his relationship with a local boy who calls himself Beckham because of his love of soccer. This leads James to acts that endanger his team and stretch them beyond wartime bravery and into James' obsessive mission. With visual flair and editing, Bigelow seems far less concerned with sustaining a sequence of events, although in this case, her own singular sense of film-making boldness overshadows the more conventional plot directions she introduces later in the story. Jeremy Renner is an amazing actor when it comes to playing the part of James because he manages to deepen the character's assured attitude with every traumatizing episode, not requiring the commendation some desire. This is because he conveys both the adamant attentiveness and the resulting adrenaline rush James feels within the nervousness of a free-for-all combat zone.
Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty play Eldridge and Sanborn skillfully, exemplifying their characters' inner conflict in other ways. Mackie accurately shows Eldridge struggling to be the professional soldier, while Geraghty reflects a more relatable angle, the one to which we civilian viewers can probably most relate, and he is especially effective in his climactic declaration scene. It's like the 1986's "Platoon" in regards to how morally ambiguous the characters are. Guy Pearce, David Morse, and Ralph Fiennes show up for brief but surprisingly effective cameos. The most attractive parts of this movie are the different selections of high-tension scenes where director combines the outstanding performances, camera angles and movements with the cinematography and a crafted sound production. Barry Ackroyd caught the vivid, gleaming cinematography. This film effectively captures great action-packed scenes, skilled actors and actresses, and encapsulates the audience in this realistic combat setting.