Another taste of 'war is hell' but it works, entertains and makes you think

Rating: 8/10 (24 August 2009)

I walked into The Hurt Locker completely blind. I was visiting the big city, had the opportunity to see movies we would never get in my small town and rushed headfirst into The Hurt Locker. This could have been a dangerous undertaking going in with zero expectations and not knowing virtually anything about the film. As it turned out it was more or less exactly what you would expect from hearing a brief rundown of the plot.
"Forced to play a dangerous game of cat-and-mouse in the chaos of war, an elite Army bomb squad unit must come together in a city where everyone is a potential enemy and every object could be a deadly bomb."
That's it, in a nutshell, no more, no less. The film is another why the current war on terror is bad and messes people up but is somehow so crucial to the humanitarian side of things. However I sound like I am being sarcastic towards the film and I don't mean to be. The cast is great, the suspense is truly top notch and the filming of the movie puts you literally dead center of the terrifying action in Iraq.
Character actor Jeremy Renner plays Staff Sergeant William James, a talented soldier with some emotional problems that leaves him a thrill seeking, danger hunting man that often puts other lives in danger. Renner leads the cast well but he just falls short of truly shining. He doesn't seem to quite have the guts to really take control of the film or the cast. Anthony Mackie also has a great role as Sergeant JT Sanborn who is the more level headed of the team and has to hold everyone together. Mackie also shows some great potential but much like Renner falls just short of really shining in the film. Brian Geraghty has the opportunity to really knock an incredible emotional character out of the park playing Specialist Owen Eldridge who is emotionally distraught over losing their original team leader and all the spoils of war. Whether it is the way the characters are written or perhaps the lack of depth to them every character in the film seems to just reach a cliff of potential but never quite goes over the cliff. I noticed one a poster going into the theater than much bigger named actor Ralph Fiennes is listed on the poster which is ludicrous considering he shows up in the film for literally minutes and makes no difference to the plot one way or another.
So with a solid but not enlightened cast we turn to the plot and the action. The film is truly brilliantly shot by Kathryn Bigelow (remember the early nineties Patrick Swayze/Keanu Reeves classic Point Break...yah her) which, as I said before, literally drops you into the Iraq war in a way I have yet to have seen on film. The tension and suspense is incredible considering these guys uncover bombs hidden inside everything from cars to garbage piles to bodies to live people. You won't get any higher sense of urgency then watching these guys putting their life in their hands again and again. You could describe The Hurt Locker as having a weak plot considering the only real idea in the film is pure survival BUT that only means that the film feels all the more real. It does entertain in a morbid sort of way but it definitely has a powerful message behind it as well. Absolutely worth checking out for fans of war films or just for someone looking for something serious and thought provoking and see some potential in hopefully future big name actors. 8/10