By: Billy BeerSlugger
The Hurt Locker is a movie that follows an elite group U.S army unit in the Iraq war in 2004. It is without a doubt one of the most kick ass movies I have seen this year. The premise of the movie is this; the Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit disarms bombs. However, this isn’t American soil and this task is made harder by the threat of insurgent snipers and remote detonation.
Jeremy Renner plays the lead and does a superb job pulling off the alpha male, adrenaline junkie leader of the unit, wearing a protective suit (and sometimes not) to diffuse bombs and IED’s. Renner shares a kind of Lethal Weapon/buddy aspect to the movie with costar Anthony Mackie.
What is great about the movie is how believable it is. That’s always the sign of a great movie, how you can kind of lose yourself in the characters and story. The kind of story you rarely find in Hollywood these days and it’s not hard to see why it was an independent film. During it’s limited release the movie went on to the garner critical acclaim and several independent film awards including best picture, best actor, breakthrough actor, cinematography, screenplay and director.
Director Kathryn Bigelow also directed one of my favorite movies of the 1990’s, Point Break. Barry Ackroyd (veteran of United 93) should be commended on shooting the movie in a very natural and raw way. Word is that writer Mark Boal stayed with and went out on routine daily activities with a bomb squad in Iraq. Jeremy Renner trained with real EOD teams prior to shooting and the film was made in Jordan, mostly about 3 miles away from the Iraq border. It brings an authenticity not seen in other Iraq War movies.
Overall, this is just a really good movie. We’re not really big on endorsing movies here on BeerSlugger.com but this anti-hollywood movie with no headline name and just flat out great acting, story, action and cinematography really blows our skirt up.
I doesn’t hurt that there’s really no women in the movie. Women, while I support serving their country in most capacities, are not meant to die on the front lines of battle which is why you won’t see one until Lost’s Evangeline Lilly shows up as the main characters wife. Ralph Fiennes and Guy Pearce (L.A. Confidential) also make cameos.
When it comes out on Netflix or whatever, take the 2 hours to watch this thrill ride. Like my indie pick last year, The Wrestler, this movie could make waves come Oscar season.