“The rush of battle is a potent and almost lethal addiction, for war is a drug.” – Chris Hedges, author of War Is A Force that Gives Us Meaning.

While this certainly is a war movie, Iraq serves merely as a backdrop. This is not a political movie. It doesn’t give reasons for being or not being in a war. We simply find ourselves in war. In fact, in the film’s opening scene, we learn that this is very much a character-driven movie and that, unlike Platoon, Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter, and more, our characters are not going to delve into the madness of war. Our characters aren’t teased by drugs, alcohol, women, guns, feelings of invincibility, paranoia, or entitlement. They are driven by their specific jobs to serve their country and get back home. Well…except for our lead. Staff Sargeant William James (Renner) is an adrenaline junkie bomb defuser. We learn about James’s job in the military even before we meet him. In the film’s opening scene, Sargeant. Matt Thompson (Guy Pearce – Memento, Prometheus), a cool, calm, and collected bomb defuser, is killed by an improvised explosive device (IED). What do we learn from this? To expect the unexpected for sure. We get a Hollywood A-lister to make a ten-minute spot in this movie, and it completely works. He’s with his team of Sergeant JT Sanborn (Mackie) and Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty – Flight, The Guardian), and there is a bomb in the middle of a town center. They have a robot on wheels (think Robot Wars) that can do a lot of the work and is often the first option. But when the robot flips over and is no longer a viable option, Thompson is suited up in the body defuser suit (which very much looks like a spacesuit). There is meticulous preparation to get Thompson safe and ready. When he does walk to the bomb, Sanborn is Thompson’s eyes and ears, providing audio through his helmet. At the same time, the rest of the team surveys the situation, providing cover fire, scanning rooftops and other hiding places that might conceal snipers and men with detonating devices. We feel the trepidation of all involved and truly can experience the unease of Thompson. He’s done these dozens of times before, but each brings new bouts of fear. Unfortunately, this is Thompson’s last mission.

And this is not a spoiler because it occurs in the film’s first scene. Bigelow crafts all of this perfectly. We see the precision the team takes in the making sure all protocols are followed and the risk, while everpresent, is minimized. Why is this so important in showing? Because as careful as the team was, this particular mission failed. And then enters the enigmatic, cocky, and, to some, detestable James, who conducts the same job as Thompson, but in a completely different way. I cannot say enough about how Renner brings out the pure cockiness in this character, who also made him someone we root for because of his relationships with his infantry and the town folk. He is absolutely magnetic, but not always in a good way. In his first bomb dismantling mission, he completely ignores the established procedures between Sanborn and Thompson. James does his own thing, for better or for worse. But make no mistake, his skill level is unmatched when it comes to his craft, as is his dedication to getting the job done. Just seeing the sweat drip off his face and he determines which line to cut first has you squirming on the edge of your seat, especially after what we saw happen to Thompson. He is not half-assed in his job. He’s just completely driven by the adrenaline the moment brings…walking twice as fast as paying half as much attention to an IED as Thompson did, we get the perfect foil. James refuses to let a robot do a job that it very well could do. James can’t get in the suit fast enough and then refuses to acknowledge Sanborn’s presence on the radio. It’s clear that we are now playing by James’s reckless rules. After dismantling the bomb, James leaves but, realizing he had left his gloves, return. Keep in mind, a heavy number of Iraqi snipers have now appeared on the scene. This scene, as much as any other, shows the difference between James and Sanborn. James is addicted to the rush of the situation. The more dangerous it is, the better. This is what he lives for. Sanborn just wants to get home. When the film starts, the tour of their Bravo company has less than a month remaining. Sanborn and Eldridge just want to go home. We really don’t know what James wants. He lives for the moment.

The constant risk he puts Sanborn and Eldridge in gets old. A bomb defuser not listening to Sanborn is something he hasn’t experienced before. He wears his frustration on the grimace of his face and, later, by punching James in his. His loose-cannon attitude even initiates a conversation between Eldridge and Sanborn in which Sandborn implies killing Will. “You know, these detonators misfire all the time,” he says. But by this time, we know all three of these characters too well. They may see things differently, but they are on the same side. One of the best things going for The Hurt Locker is that we look at war through a lens we hadn’t seen before. Who could have thought that a movie where the main goal was diffusing bombs on the streets in the very country being invaded would have made for enthralling cinema? But absolutely, it did. Rener and Mackie brought such life to two characters who ultimately shared the same vision but contrasted so much in style in personality. In fact, both actors did such a great job at digging into the deepest nuances of each of their characters that you couldn’t tell if these guys loved each other, hated each other, or just had each other’s backs because they were on the same side of the battlefield.

James isn’t a superhero or even an action hero. He’s a specialist who is designed to do one thing. He defuses bombs. It’s like a heart surgeon. A heart surgeon is likely skilled in many areas of medicine, but you want your heart surgeon to be a specialist because it’s such an important organ in our body. We don’t want our heart surgeon to focus on anything other than being the best heart surgeon she can be. Don’t worry about the liver, lungs, spleen. Other specialists can do that. Concentrate on the heart. So while James, a former Army Ranger, can handle a pistol and engage in various other military operations, his job is to defuse bombs. But what happens when an adrenaline rush isn’t releasing enough endorphins? We find a substitute that will allow us to reach that high. This actually leads to a couple of scenes that might otherwise seem out of place in this movie (and did for me during my first viewing) but made perfect sense. This movie is as much about the need to reach a high through dangerous combat situations as it is about the War in Iraq. Honestly, for a war movie, it’s hard for me to find a movie where we dislike the opponent less. Many of the Iraqis in the movie are friendly and more than one character, including Will James, befriends a handful of them. The war, at times there is plenty of combat and situations which will fill the need of those needing warfare and battle, becomes secondary to the needs of the characters and the internal strife among them.

It is brilliant filmmaking. It has a powerful score. And the cinematography is so fantastic that we feel like we are on the streets of Iraq, sucking in the same dust as our heroes.

Plot 10/10
Character Development 9.5/10
Character Chemistry 10/10
Acting 10/10
Screenplay 9.5/10
Directing 10/10
Cinematography 10/10
Sound 10/10
Hook and Reel 9.5/10
Universal Relevance 10/10
98.5%