The Hurt Locker

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The Hurt Locker (15) 112 mins

"You'll know when you're in it."

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Screenplay: Mark Boal

Cinematography: Barry Ackroyd

Original music: Marco Beltrami, Buck Sanders

The Hurt Locker is a riveting, suspenseful portrait of the courage under fire of the military's unrecognised heroes: the technicians of a bomb squad who volunteer to challenge the odds and save lives doing one of the world's most dangerous jobs. Three members of the Army's elite Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) squad, Staff Sergeant James (Jeremy Renner), Specialist Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) and Sgt J T Sanborn (Anthony Mackie), battle insurgents and one another as they search for and disarm a wave of roadside bombs on the streets of Baghdad - in order to try and make the city a safer place for Iraqis and Americans alike. Their mission is clear - protect and save - but it's anything but easy, as the margin of error when defusing a war-zone bomb is zero. This thrilling and heart-pounding look at the psychology of bomb technicians and the effects of risk and danger on the human psyche is a fictional tale inspired by real events by journalist and screenwriter Mark Boal, who was embedded with a special bomb unit in Iraq. In Iraq, it is soldier vernacular to speak of explosions as sending you to the "hurt locker".

Oscar wins: Best Achievement in Directing, Kathryn Bigelow; Best Achievement in Editing, Bob Murawski, Chris Innis; Best Achievement in Sound, Paul N J Ottosson, Ray Beckett; Best Achievement in Sound Editing, Paul N J Ottosson; Best Motion Picture of the Year, Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, Nicolas Chartier, Greg Shapiro; Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen, Mark Boal.

Oscar nominations: Best Achievement in Cinematography, Barry Ackroyd; Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score, Marco Beltrami, Buck Sanders; Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Jeremy Renner.

"The Hurt Locker is a spellbinding war film by Kathryn Bigelow, a master of stories about men and women who choose to be in physical danger. She cares first about the people, then about the danger. She doesn’t leave a lot of room for much else...The Hurt Locker is a great film, an intelligent film, a film shot clearly so that we know exactly who everybody is and where they are and what they're doing and why. " Roger Ebert

"Mr. Renner’s performance — feverish, witty, headlong and precise — is as thrilling as anything else in the movie. In each scene a different facet of James’s personality emerges. He can be callous, even mean at times, but there is a fundamental tenderness to him as well, manifest in his affection for an Iraqi boy who sells pirated DVDs and his patient solicitude when Eldridge, under fire and surrounded by dead bodies, has an understandable bout of panic." New York Times

"While there's not much in the way of storyline, when it comes to nerve-jangling tension, director Kathryn Bigelow proves she's a master of her craft. From the opening scene of a blast in downtown Baghdad, she paints a terrifying picture of a land in which instant death is around every corner and where the sweat trickling down your neck may be the last thing you ever feel." Daily Mirror

For more information, and to see a trailer and stills, visit the official website at www.thehurtlocker-movie.com

Showing:

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Last modified: 09-Jun-2010

The Hurt Locker (15) 112 mins

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