The Hurt Locker

Director Kathryn Bigelow concocts a masterpiece of film without any tricks or gimmicks, resulting in a taut, suspenseful action thriller. Set in Iraq, an elite army bomb squad must come together in a city where everyone is a potential enemy and every object could be a deadly bomb. The tension and suspense is at times breathtaking, and Jeremy Renner, unknown to me before this film, is excellent as Staff Sergeant William James. The rest of the cast are brilliant and there are very brief cameo appearances by Guy Pearce and Ralph Fiennes. Shot in a documentary style using hand held cameras, the film is remarkably effective at putting the audience in the heart of the tension which goes with inching up to a bomb. The Hurt Locker gives audiences a real sense of the lives of bomb defusing technicians not only in Baghdad but anywhere in the world.