DVD-The Hurt Locker

It is not often that you see a great movie. The Hurt Locker is a great movie.

The story is about a group of soldiers tasked with disarming IEDs in Iraq. For a war movie, it is quiet. There isn't a lot of action. But you will be on the edge of your seat watching this one. It is intense because the movie lays out at the beginning what is at stake when it comes to dealing with these bombs. They will flat out kill you. Once the stakes are established Katherine Bigelow simply turns the screws, and the tension in each scene becomes overwhelming. You never know when these guys are just going to eat it. This is the stress soldiers live under constantly.

War is a drug. That line is what makes this movie special. Jeremy Renner plays SSG William James who is addicted to the drug of war. This becomes apparent to his fellow soldiers who cannot abide his wild antics. The guy lives to defuse bombs. He is monomaniacal. The scene that spells this out most clearly involves not a bomb but cereal on a store aisle. Bombs give meaning. Everything else is just a distraction.

This movie is superbly directed and acted. It deserves the Oscar for Best Picture and Bigelow deserves Best Director. I will be surprised and disappointed if she doesn't carry home both trophies. Without a doubt, The Hurt Locker is the Best Film to come out of 2009.

The last question is the obvious one. What is a hurt locker? The movie does not answer this. Various answers have been given, but it is supposed to be slang for getting fucked up in an explosion and being sent to the "hurt locker." But the ambiguity of the title is much like the larger ambiguity of the film. You provide your own answers.

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