The Hurt Locker

Released: 2009
MPAA rating: R
Run-time: 2:11

It’s starting to look like a two-horse race between “The Hurt Locker” and “Avatar” for Best Picture this year.  While I loved “Avatar”, I’m not really advocating it for Best Picture as it was more about the “experience” of the movie than the movie itself.  Interestingly, “The Hurt Locker” is almost equally an “experience” movie.  No, it is not 3-D, but it totally immerses you in the Iraq War better than any news footage could.  The film follows a fictional bomb disposal unit deployed in Iraq as a part of Bravo company.  After an opening scene to establish what exactly this unit does, the unit is joined by SSG William James (Jeremy Renner) and we quickly learn that James does things very differently.  On his first mission, he foregoes the use of robotics to go check out the bomb for itself.  You aren’t quite sure if he is a thrill seeker or simply has a death wish.  As far as story goes, that’s about it.  The movie is basically a string of intense sequences of bomb disarmament and some other military conflict.  Perhaps the most intense is a sequence where the team finds themselves pinned down by a sniper and are caught in a deadly game of who can get their sights calibrated faster?  This is a very good, intense movie that gives you a pretty strong feeling of what it is like in a war-time environment.  However, I now find myself without a clear Oscar favorite.  I would bet “The Hurt Locker” will win, but I definitely did not find it to be as good as all the attention it is getting.  Maybe “The Hurt Locker” and “Avatar” will split the vote and my favorite, “Inglourious Basterds” can sneak in and take it.  (Although I don’t really see that as “Best Picture” material, either).  Oh, and since it is never explained in the movie, I give you the definition of “The Hurt Locker”, c/o IMDB:
To put someone in a "hurt locker" is to physically mess someone up, badly. It is roughly synonymous with causing someone "a world of pain." According to the movie's official web site, "In Iraq it is soldier vernacular to speak of explosions as sending you to "the hurt locker."

Grade: B+


Trailer: