kathryn bigelow's THE HURT LOCKER (2009)

there's been a lot of talk since people started making movies about the Iraq war that people don't want to go watch movies about the Iraq war, but Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker -- called "a Platoon for the Iraq war" by ex-hubby Jim Cameron, which is perhaps a more smartly observed line than anything in Avatar -- is a pretty definitive refutation, no matter how underseen it remains. most films made thus far about the war were obviously done so from a place of political anger, and directed (consciously or not) at those who feel the same; while Bigelow's does stoop to the occasional potshot/groaner (one of the film's not-inconsiderable flaws) it's still quite clear her aim is to make an honest-to-god war film like we haven't seen in some time.

but that's not to say we've necessarily seen anything quite like this, and not just because we skipped all those other Iraq movies. The Hurt Locker is an action film and a war film, but plays like neither where it really counts; in choosing to focus on a small team of soldiers tasked with the disposal of live improvised explosives -- among the most unknowable enemies in a land chock full of them, and almost certainly the most devastating --  Bigelow (and writer Scott Boal, who despite strong work is more to fault for the film's problems) has found a top-notch scenario for visceral suspense, and makes the most of it. several of the setpieces play out for two or three times as long as a less tasteful, less sure filmmaker would think to let them, and each takes a jagged trajectory, ratcheting up the tension at irregular intervals, sometimes ending thirty seconds before we know they're over, sometimes ending three minutes after we think we're sure.

what fills the gaps between these scenes is much more uneven, and even corny toward the end, attempting a character study of the sort of solider that relishes his scrapes with death above all other earthly pleasures (including Evangeline Lilly!) but not really having the point of view to say anything compelling about it. Jeremy Renner is terrific in the role, but, like the film itself, always best from beneath his explosives suit.