A couple of weeks ago, The Hurt Locker snuck into a few select theaters in New York and L.A. We saw it, it was staggering as hell, and now, as it expands into more theaters today, it’s your turn to see what’s sure to be the most-talked-about movie of tomorrow.
1. Bombs, man. Bombs.
We’ve never seen bombs like these! Peace in the Middle East is doubtful if local Iraqi denizens keep planting obliteration-intended tick-tockers all over their homeland. But luckily (well, not for the bombmakers), there are a few fellas in the U.S. Army with the skills — and the balls — to stop the bombs from doing what bombs are supposed to do. This movie is about watching said fellas — particularly Jeremy Renner, who’s clad in fatigues similar to his 28 Weeks Later outfit — attempt to deactivate scarily crafted bombs. It’s a one-man-can-only-do-this kind of job, and you, the moviegoer, can’t help but carry this man’s enormous burden, too — on your tensed-up shoulders and in your throat because taking a breath seems almost unfair.
2. It’s an Iraq movie — but not like that.
Most Iraq movies are either way too History Channel (like 2007’s Oscar-winning documentary Taxi to the Dark Side) or awful (like Ryan Phillippe‘s Stop-Loss). The Hurt Locker, however, combines both an insider-y look into modern-day war, and well, entertainment. It’s incredible to learn a few secrets about this niche department of our army, but the delivery is hardly pedantic. Renner and his co-stars Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty, in fact, seem kind of cool and incredibly unfake. Even when Renner is a smug jackass and Geraghty is ultimately a pansy — I mean, am I not describing your lovable boyfriend in one? The movie feels authentic and the opposite of a bad Southern accent.
3. The abandoned wife and child back home? That story angle is a blip. The way it should be.
Obviously, the men miss their ladies. They talk about it a little, and hell, Renner’s onscreen wife Evangeline Lilly gets a bit of screen time whilst cradling a baby à la Lost — but it lasted, like, 90 seconds. The movie is about bombs and the boys fondling them. Thanks, director Kathryn Bigelow, for figuring that out and sticking to it.
4. Jeremy Renner.
Shame his TV show, The Unusuals, was a bust, but Renner is such a Most Likely to Succeed acting candidate that it’s an embarrassment Shia LaBeouf was ever branded one.
5. The ending.
Would never ruin it, but the movie ends with hard-to-admit and somewhat unorthodox emotions, and we’re glad that this movie was brave enough to go there.
LAST ODE: Five Reasons Why Lindsay Lohan Still Fascinates Us
More:
The Hurt Locker Movie Details | The Hurt Locker Movie Stills
