An excellent example of how to make a non-political Iraq War film

Rating: 9/10 (21 January 2010)

My advice is to see the movie and not read the review if you were planning on seeing it anyways.
Movies based on current events can be a strange breed. They're often preachy and always biased. However, they often get good reviews regardless, so I wasn't putting too much stock into the amazing reviews for The Hurt Locker. I remember when I saw 500 Days of Summer, I had the choice of seeing this instead. Both were only playing in the one theater in Toronto at the time, and it turns out they are both two of the best movies of the year hands down.
The Hurt Locker defies expectations and, instead of being about the war, is a character study. The movie has zero poltical stance. It portrays the bombers as monsters and many other Iraqis as sympathetic. If it had been about the bombers, it would have probably found some sympathy, but this isn't their story.
This is the story of Staff Seargent William James, assigned to a bomb disposal unit in Iraq, replacing their recently blown-up teammate. James is reckless, which pisses off his teammates whose lives are put in danger. This is made explicitly clear during his first job, where he holds up a speeding taxi (and bomber suspect) with a pistol.
James is a static character, and while he learns over the course of the film, he doesn't change per se. The initially unsensible character simply becomes more and more clear to the audience over time. In fact, I would bet his actions early in the film would seem quite natural if seen a second time having gotten to know the character. Renner's performance is absolutely excellent and completely believable and the most realistic and complex badass to cross the screen as of late.
The movie also focuses on his teammates, who do evolve over the course of the film. Veteran soldier Sanborn is the straight man of the film, and at first appears to be the main character. We sympathize with his troubles with James and his position of responsibility. The other member of the squad is Eldridge, representing those who really don't want to be in Iraq. He's not a pansy, but he panics and desperately wants to go home. Both of these characters serve as foils to James, and as such are often sidelined, but nonetheless add to the film.
Aside from those three, few characters are expanded upon. Guy Pearce and Ralph Fiennes are excellent in small roles, the latter as perhaps the closest the movie comes to commentary, singling the issue of military contractors. Lost's Evangeline Lilly and House's David Morse also make cameos.
While not an action movie, The Hurt Locker is chock full of tension. The situations that James puts himself into are pulse-pounding and the outcome never seems certain. There's a sniper battle which is excellently filmed (one odd slow-down shot aside), although some parts of it make little sense (notably the accuracy of the enemy sniper). I've also heard some complaints from people who know their stuff about realism, but these are moot to the average film viewer. This is one of the most suspenseful movies of the year hands down, and whether realistic or not, it certainly FEELS realistic.
The Hurt Locker is an excellent movie that only gets better the more I think about it. A great character portrayed with a clearly Oscar-worthy performance with ridiculous amounts of tension add up to make The Hurt Locker one of the best war movies of the decade and proof that contemporary war movies can work without being political.
War is a drug.