A movie about the war in Iraq sounds like pretty brutal punishment – who the heck wants to see that? – but “The Hurt Locker” is, without exception, the best non-documentary depiction of the real deal that I’ve seen. That said, the grainy, jolting camera work might leave you pining to be a few rows farther back in the theater, just to avoid motion sickness. One of the interesting things about this movie is that its biggest stars – Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes and David Morse – have tiny roles, which leaves the role to a fabulous, destined-to-be-a-star, boy-next-door type named Jeremy Renner, as Staff Sgt. William James. He’s a redneck-trailer-trash kind of guy with a very sexy edge. Anthony Mackie, who plays his partner Sgt. J. T. Sanborn, is destined to be a star, too.
As we watch through the eyes of James and Sanborn and their bundle-of-nerves sidekick, Owen Edridge (Brian Geraghty), the three are forced to make split-second life-or-death decisions every hour of every day, because they never know who’s an insurgent and who isn’t. Sgt. James’s job is to disarm bombs – he’s already done eight hundred and seventy-three, to be exact – and his platoon’s job is to keep the neighborhoods of Baghdad safe. These are unknown heroes struggling to “be all that you can be” – but what they really might be at any moment is blown to smithereens in an unexpected explosion.
And the movie’s “Jaws”-like suspense puts us right there with them. Sgt. William James invests military discipline with plenty of sex appeal, reminiscent of what Robert DeNiro brought to “The Deer Hunter.” The story, by screenwriter Mark Boal, focuses on finding the balance between power and fear, and the director, Katherine Bigelow, puts intense mind-to-eye concentration into every detail, including every pesty fly and spray of desert sand that sticks to the soldiers’ sweating brows. You’ll walk away not sure what to feel…Exhausted? Yes. Confused? Yes. Drained? Yes. But certain of one thing. It’s a Four Tiara adrenalin rush well worth the price of admission.