Intense and thrilling, with few lulls. One of the year's best.

Rating: 10/10 (5 January 2010)

Set in 2004, "The Hurt Locker" follows three men: James (Jeremy Renner), Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), and Eldrige (Brian Geraghty. James is an efficient though possibly reckless EOD who lives for disarming bombs. Sanbord is a by the book commander who frequently conflicts with James. Eldridge is stuck with them, but he's anxious to get home. Together, they go out on missions to defuse roadside (or car-trunk) bombs and ensure no one gets hurt or killed in the process.
Right away, Bigelow amps up the tension and never lets it up. From the moment Guy Pearce is killed trying to set off a bomb in the first scene, you know that anyone is vulnerable at anytime. This isn't going to be a predictable Hollywood war (or action) story with stars staying alive until the end or people avoiding explosions simply by not being in the ring of fire. Anyone is vulnerable, even from a long distance away.
One sequence after another involves the three men trying to defuse bombs, and each sequence is as intense as the first. It's not that there's a ton of violence in the picture; don't get me wrong, guns get shot and bombs go off. It's that you have to wait five, ten, maybe fifteen minutes for the next hit. For the entire runtime, my eyes were wide open and sometimes I had to catch my breath because the tension was so constant and unbroken. Any wrong move, and it would be their last.
The script, written by Mark Boal, expertly allows the characters to be defined by their actions. Although he doesn't have many expository scenes, you still get to know the characters quite well through their actions on the field and with each other. This is especially well done in the contrasts between James and Sanborn. Of course, great characterization would mean little without great casting, and Renner, Mackie, and Geraghty give their characters three dimensions. Renner, in particular, does a fantastic job showing James to be an efficient though admittedly cocky OED without turning him into a gung-ho soldier.
Another strength to this film is the lack of dialogue. Some war films get far too talky for their own good, or lose their direction because they're trying to insert too many "clever" conversations (QT, I'm looking right at you). Boal does not make that mistake; the characters only say enough. The lack of dialogue usually helps increase the tension, such as in one scene where the three men try to ferret out a bomber and have to use many visual signals to keep communication clear.
Bigelow's direction is magnificent. Her mastery of keeping tension up was such that before I knew it, I was scanning the screen looking for guns or hand signals or any kinds of incoming threats, just like the soldiers. She has created a war film that keeps the conflict high and allows you to immerse yourself with the characters and their plight. I hope that she becomes the first woman to win Best Director Oscar, but even if she doesn't, she's still made a film for the ages. "The Hurt Locker" knocks you out with it's unflinching look at life in the Army and even makes you think if we, as a country, constantly want to test our strength against the so-called "Hurt Locker" like James.