U.S. (Voltage Pictures, Grosvenor Park The hurt locker (2008) Media, FCEF, First Light Production, The Hurt Locker is Kathryn Bigelow’s greatest film yet. Like three other recent Kingsgate Films) 131m Color movies—District 9, Inglourious Basterds, and Avatar (made by Bigelow’s Director: Kathryn Bigelow ex-husband and ex-collaborator James Cameron)—The Hurt Locker taps back Producer: Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Nicolas Chartier, Greg Shapiro into the sentiment of the “good war” that audiences clearly craved after an Screenplay: Mark Boal onslaught of dreary films such as Rendition, Stop Loss, and Lions for Lambs: Photography: Barry Ackroyd “unjustified” war stories that had kept theaters empty for years. In 2010, Music: Marco Beltrami, Buck Sanders Bigelow made history as the first female director ever to win an Oscar—only Cast: Jeremy Renner, Anthony three female directors had ever previously been nominated. Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Guy Bigelow’s fascination with violence and our relationships to it (audience Pearce, Ralph Fiennes, David Morse, members and characters alike) here gets its most distilled and most visceral Evangeline Lilly, Christian Camargo, treatment. Action in movies excites, she has always proclaimed, and the lives Suhail Aldabbahc, Christopher Sayegh, Nabil Koni, Sam Spruell, Sam of the violent, who choose to live with danger, are the most worthy of her Redford, Feisal Sadoun, Barrie Rice, attention on film. With the steady hand of screenwriter and ex-journalist Mark Imad Dadudi Boal, she produces a film of almost unbearable suspense, with Jeremy Renner Oscars: Kathryn Bigelow (director), (Dahmer) in a star-making turn as Staff Sergeant William James. Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Set during the Iraq War, The Hurt Locker skilfully pulls us into the chaos Nicholas Chartier, Greg Shapiro (best of an elite U.S. bomb deactivation unit by concentrating on authenticity and picture), Mark Boal (screenplay), Bob Murawski, Chris Ennis (editing), Paul character, while assiduously avoiding politics and polemics. Through a series N. J. Ottosson, Ray Beckett (sound), of escalating set pieces and minute dollops of personal information, Bigelow Paul N. J. Ottosson (sound editing) presents not the nature of war, but rather the nature of the warrior. Oscar nominations: Jeremy The soldiers’ addictive compulsions for danger, for heroics, for mental and Renner (actor), Barry Ackroyd physical challenge, and for glory are what make them seem damaged and (cinematography), Marco Beltrami, Buck Sanders (music) unhappy men in peacetime, but it is these very same compulsions that fill the men with a terrible absoluteness during conflict. War may be “hell,” but it’s still the closest thing to heaven for William James. Renner is ably assisted by actors Anthony Mackie as J. T. Sanborn, Brian Geraghty as Owen Eldridge, and Guy Pearce as Matt Thompson. The pleasure Renner’s character gives us by challenging himself through impossible situations as the archetypal “movie hero” seems almost addictive by the fade out. We come to see, through vicarious experience and calibrated observation, how hero and loon can be one and the same, and to remember—thanks to Kathryn Bigelow—just how much fun men of danger are in the movies. JP

936