Review: The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker
(R16), 131 mins
You've got a handful of wires in front of you and three seconds to make a decision or you will be blown to bits.
Which wire do you choose?
The Academy Award-winning The Hurt Locker takes you into the world of bomb disarmers in Iraq, where death is a wrong wire away.
There's a truckload of hype behind The Hurt Locker, winner of six Oscars, as it makes its belated New Zealand debut. But does it live up to it?
At its core, The Hurt Locker is a cracking war movie with the immediacy of a reality TV show. It may not quite be as unforgettable as Apocalypse Now, but it's very much a tale of modern, unpredictable warfare.
Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner) is the new leader of a team of American bomb deployment experts.
Unlike his cautious comrades, Renner is a bit of a cowboy, prone to taking crazy risks.
Director Kathryn Bigelow, the first woman to win Oscar's Best Director honour, is one of Hollywood's most kinetic action directors, making movies like Point Break and Near Dark vivid and tense.
The stage is set with a terrific opening sequence that immediately knocks you off balance, creating the tension that lingers the entire movie.
Anyone can die at any time.
Another sequence set in the desert with a dangerous group of snipers is a masterpiece of razor-sharp suspense.
Bigelow avoids most moral judgement - this isn't a pro- or anti-Iraq war movie. The Hurt Locker is less about passing on a message than it is a deeply immersive experience. You feel the desert heat.
Oscar-nominated Jeremy Renner makes James a daredevil with a death wish.
Bomb disarmament requires a quick mind, a still hand and a healthy respect for danger - but James plunges into each situation with risky bravado, horrifying his army mates. Renner does an excellent job showing a man torn between duty and adrenaline.
Although The Hurt Locker is a great movie, what may have propelled it to Oscar glory is its ability to tap into the global zeitgeist of terrorism and fear that defines much of the last decade.
It's a world where at any moment, the peace can be shattered - and this is the story of a man who comes to feed on that chaos; who only feels alive when he's facing death.