Review: The Hurt Locker DVD

Jan 12, 2010 12:40 PM by Joel D. Amos

Posted in Entertainment / Movies & Reviews

Kathryn Bigalow's Bombastic Triumph

The Hurt Locker took 2009 movie screens by storm. Director Kathryn Bigelow had weaved a tale so tight audiences could feel the intense pressures of her characters diffusing bombs in the middle of the Iraq War.

The Hurt Locker is a leading contender for the January 17 Golden Globes and upcoming Academy Awards.

Bigelow first gained notice when she wrote the 1989 Jamie Lee Curtis starring Blue Steel. Two years later, she directed Point Break with Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves starring as bad guy and FBI agent seeking to break a bank robbing ring of surfers. Point Break immediately became a cult classic and Bigelow's mark on film was only beginning.

She directed the James Cameron-penned Strange Days starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Lewis in 1995 and then took Hollywood by storm again with Sean Penn's The Weight of Water in 2000, Harrison Ford's K19: The Widowmaker in 2002, while also being the mind behind Carla Gugino's outstanding, yet short-lived TV series based on the Jennifer Lopez and George Clooney icon that is Out of Sight, Karen Sisco.

Bigelow is also an accomplished painter and her talent for the visual transcends the canvas, especially on The Hurt Locker.

The Hurt Locker clip

A Locker worth keeping forever

If pure, unadulterated adrenaline cinematic journeys are your cup of tea, then The Hurt Locker DVD is one to buy, not rent. If films that capture deep character studies tickle your fancy, Bigelow has crafted movie manna. If a story whose illustration of those related to those who literally bleed to battle for America's freedom and that effect on families stateside, The Hurt Locker is a hurting and haunting mirror that achieves capturing the Iraq War as no other film has since George W Bush began the assault to remove Saddam Hussein.

The actors of The Hurt Locker are all familiar to the eye, although they may not yet be household names. Bigelow's Strange Days star Ralph Fiennes makes a cameo appearance as does Evangeline Lilly (Lost) and Guy Pearce (Momento).