If you don’t already know the name Jeremy Renner, write it down. Better yet, just rent The Hurt Locker. Renner looks like Daniel Craig, but the pulse-thumping heroics his bomb-disposal specialist is up to in Kathryn Bigelow’s tense-as-hell Iraq-war film make 007’s exploits look tame. He’s a high-tech warrior in a low-tech war, which means his job is to walk up to a roadside IED, pull out a pair of wire cutters, and hope he doesn’t get blown to kingdom come. He’s also a thrill junkie who gets off ? on his death-wish mission — you get the sense that he’d be lost without war. Renner adds layers of complexity to a character that could’ve easily been a cartoon of courage. See why the film has already won a ton of critics’ awards. The EXTRAS feature a terrific commentary from Bigelow and writer Mark Boal, who embedded in Iraq as a journalist. A
The Hurt Locker
By
Chris Nashawaty
Chris Nashawaty is a former senior writer at Entertainment Weekly. He left EW in 2019.
Published on January 7, 2010 05:00AM EST