THE HURT LOCKER ☆☆☆☆

The best Iraq War movie we've been given, easily, and it's not one that goes into the moral animosity about why we shouldn't fight and that war is bad (duh). "The Hurt Locker" is about a select group of soldiers, here an elite bomb dismantle unit, and we follow them through the dangers of the every day job, and the intensity and suspense of those scenes, one after the other, with a rigorous pace, is more compelling, and will clue you to your seat, better than any action thriller you might have seen this year (one with the same structure and pace is "Angels and Demons," though the dangers are less real there). "The Hurt Locker" excels at that level, but what gives the movie it's soul and energy is our three soldiers, who we watch as the days in rotation (when their tour ends) draws ever nearer, and, something that no great war movie can seem to do without, each take their own personal toll. Brain Geraghty as timid, frightened Owen Eldridge, Anthony Mackie as straight-arrow, no-nonsense JT Sanborn, and Jeremy Renner as stalwart William James, the genius bomb removal guy with a cool, but reckless attitude: the performances by the three, not just Renner, are top notch. Watching these guys, these actors, as the jobs get more dangerous and, for James, more personal, and the days counting down for home click off, we are compelled by them as each seems to lose their nerve, knowing that home and death are not to far apart from each other. And more involving James, who spirals out of control, at one point, as a vengeful vigilante who we can only watch in terror hoping this guy, who we know may be smart on the job, and though reckless, can loss his footing with matters of the heart. By the end of this movie, the last few words by our three soldiers as they contemplate their time at war, and displayed by the actors, is poetic and heartbreaking. "The Hurt Locker's" main guy is James, and we follow him through most of the movie, and his ending clarity makes "The Hurt Locker" one of the better moral stories, and better told ones, of the last year. Director Kathryn Bigelow, who's "K-19: The Widowmaker" was a severely underrated action/war drama, shows her chops with a no-balls approach, a great cast, and a great script (Mark Boal, who did "In The Valley of Elah," possibly the only other good Iraq War movie).

"The Hurt Locker" didn't make my '09 top ten list simply because I didn't want to push anything out, but it would have been ranked high (think somewhere around the middle, between "Invictus" and "Inglourious Basterds"), it's one of the best of the year, and certainly one of the best war dramas to come out in a while. It's an intense war film with a supercharged pace and a tough, but full, heart. Like "Platoon" is to the Vietnam War, "The Hurt Locker" is to the Iraq War. No question.