I just caught The Hurt Locker recently on DVD and I was quite saddened. I was saddened because I wish I would’ve been able to catch this innovative and tense look into war on the big screen. I loved The Hurt Locker, everything just worked, from the directing, the acting, editing, everything just seemed to fit together so perfectly. Usually war movies can be so long and draining even, almost too dramatic, which is a very interesting way to look at war, because wars are long and draining, but The Hurt Locker took a new direction and went with a tense character study of a bomb technician.

The Hurt Locker opens with a fantastic opening sequence that expresses exactly what kind of movie your in for. The kind that’s unpredictable, intense and, at the risk of sounding a bit morbid, fun. Jeremy Renner plays our main protagonist and plays him to perfection. Instead of a hero here though, we get to delve deep into the psyche of a man who gets an almost sick thrill out of the life and death situations he deals with every day.

Using fantastic direction, each scene was exactly as tense as it could’ve been. You never knew what to expect. There were so many memorable sequences in the movie, and every one of them felt completely necessary to tell this tale. I also loved the cameos from great actors like Guy Pearce and especially the cameo from one of my favorite actors of all time, Ralph Fiennes.

Overall The Hurt Locker is a fantastic movie worth many views. It may not be a film for everyone based on its tense and at times even gruesome nature, but it was certainly a film for me and it very possibly could be a film for you. You’ll just have to see for yourself.

Grade: A