One of the year's best

Rating: Null/10 (14 December 2009)

When SSgt William James joins Bravo Company in Iraq, they have a month or so left in their tour of duty. He's a bomb disposal expert and he is replacing Sgt Matt Thompson, a long-standing member of the team who was recently killed disposing of an improvised explosive device. To say that James loves what he does doesn't quite capture the emotional high he experiences when he gets to do what he does best. For his fellow squad members however, including Sgt JT Sanborn and Spc Owen Eldridge, they just want to survive the few days of duty they have left... The Hurt Locker is great, and possibly, the best war movie to come out in years. I'm not in the army and I have never been to war but I have the feeling that this is one of the most realistic and accurate depictions of what actually goes on in the field. Every scene feels extremely authentic. The films focus on a bomb squad, a unit that goes around checking out and disarming bombs and all sorts of exposing devices, that have either been planted, or just abandoned, but either way are dangerous. The 3 main characters are Will (Jeremy Renner), an adrenaline junkie who as I mentioned above is replacing a member of the team that was recently killed, the strong-minded leader Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) who is desperately counting the days to get the hell out of Iraq and Eldridge (Brian Geraghty), who's having a hard time holding it together. A lot of the film is this unit simply trying to disarm dangerous devices and the pace is kinda slow, but the atmosphere is so tense and this sequences have so much suspense (because the soldiers never know who to trust and everyone seems suspect) that I couldn't take my eyes of the screen and was constantly on the edge of my seat. The acting is top-notch, although the "less known" actors like Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie are the ones who truly shine and the well established actors like Ralph Fiennes and Guy Pearce have minor roles and very little screen time. The only flaw I can think of, is the fact that the story could use a little more development. In the end Will comes trough as a man who only feels alive when experiencing danger and facing death, and that, was one of the most interesting parts of the film and maybe could have been explored a little more. The Hurt Locker seems to be the major Oscar contender of 2009 and while I think the film it's far from being a masterpiece, I'm sure it is one of the best films of the year.
8/10