The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker (2008)

98% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 130 reviews)

Runtime: 131 minutes

Directed by: Kathryn Bigelow

Starring: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Guy Pierce, Ralph Fiennes, Evangeline Lilly

From: Summit Entertainment

To start this off, I’ll mention that as of the past few years, the way that I get movie recommendations is from CHUD and its forums and from horror website Dread Central. For the most part, you can’t go wrong with either site and its recommendations.

I found out about this flick from the forums of CHUD. It’s from the director of such films as Point Break and K19:Widowmaker. As surprising as it may seem, I’ve seen a grand total of zero films from her up to this point.

The fact that she’s a woman director and has been doing this since the 80’s is noteworthy, I say. Women directors aren’t that common and one who does action and horror flicks is even rarer. It became more widely released in late July but due to my vacation I didn’t have time to see it until I was in the middle of said vacation, on August 8th to be exact. I saw it with someone I know in the suburbs of Chicago.

In the past few years there have been a handful of movies released concerning our “residence” in Iraq since 2003, such as Lions for Lambs, In The Valley of Elah, and Stop-Loss; no matter how highly regarded those movies were, audiences generally didn’t go to see it (which would include me; I’ve never seen any of those flicks or any of the other Iraq movies). I presume it’s because people just didn’t want to be reminded of that controversial war and it’s not a topic I’ll delve into here, but I know people who went over there to fight and not everyone made it back, unfortunately, so like most people it’s had an effect on me.

This movie isn’t something for mass audiences either but it is in 478 theatres now so it’s more of a niche thing. It’s doing fine, money-wise, so that’s good. The film is about a trio of soldiers (Renner, Mackie, Geraghty) who diffuse bombs in Iraq and we see a series of vignettes where they do more than just their job description. It’s a *very* tense drama with some action where you’re on edge most of the time as you don’t know who to trust and who may shoot at you or blow you up out of nowhere. While I’ve heard this isn’t the most accurate depiction of what it’s like over there or to do that particular job, the general idea of “war is hell” and what it must be like over in the Middle East is conveyed very well, I think. The performances from the trio are all great, especially from Renner, who is the guy that takes apart the bombs and is a wildcard that likes to be rebellious but like all the other characters, it’s not cut and dried like that and all of them have flaws and their good points. The bigger names in the cast equate themselves well also in more limited roles. The way the movie sounds is tremendous. If you’re in a theatre with something like Dolby Digital, it will sound great and when explosions or gunfire are heard, you’ll literally feel it and it seems like the entire auditorium is rumbling. For that reason, I say this is something well worth seeing on the big screen if it’s playing by you… if you’re interested in the topic, that is.

Later this will I'll post a review or two of a movie/movies that are older.