The Hurt Locker (2009) ****1/2

Set during the early days of the current war in Iraq, The Hurt Locker follows a bomb squad (Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty) that goes out everyday and stands at the brink of death, dismantling and neutralizing bombs while worrying that every civilian watching them is holding the detonator. When their squad leader is killed in one such explosion, he is replaced by SFC James (Jeremy Renner) who, as time goes by, takes more and more risks, alienating the rest of his team from himself and culminating in a moment of clarity for their new leader.

You can almost compare to The Hurt Locker to the Saw films. As each bomb progresses into the next one the traps become more and more heinous and disgusting. Each bomb is filled with tension, especially after seeing the horrible way that the original squad leader (played by Guy Pearce) dies. You get to see that just the concussion can cause once head to explode like a melon. The bombs cause tension enough, yet with James taking risks being normal military protocol the team has an element of fear not seen at the beginning of the film. At that point it's like a day at the office. As the film reaches its climax, it's a day in hell. The thing that the squad realizes is that they were in hell the entire time.

Directed beautifully by Kathryn Bigelow (who was encourage to do this film by ex-husband James Cameron), The Hurt Locker really delves into all of the aspects of a soldiers place in Iraq. The film doesn't cast judgement on the war or why we're even there in the first place. It is a brutal account of what is probably the toughest job in Iraq. The soldiers take the center stage in the film, not the conflict. The actors are magnificent, playing their personality types perfectly even to the end of the film. They are relative unknowns that aren't drowning in the excesses of a big name co-star, making you relate to these men as soldiers, not previous characters they may have played. In addition to Pearce, there are appearances by David Morse and Ralph Fiennes, but this is an unknown show and it works great.

Gritty, unrelenting, and disturbing, The Hurt Locker represents and unglorified and star studded look at the Iraqi conflict. If you were to compare this film to another war movie of years gone by, this would probably related closer to Full Metal Jacket. Both films took an unconventional route to telling the story of the men on the ground that weren't covered in brass and war stories. A magnificent, microscopic look of modern warfare.