The Hurt Locker

So for the second time in as many days Nebulon has beamed down to the multiplex, and for the second time in as many days he has had an enjoyable time. This despite having to fight the urge to atomise the retarded teenagers clogging up the box office. When the invasion comes the first thing we will do is ban your young from all movie theatres.

The Hurt Locker is great, but difficult to categorise. Nebulon hesitates to call it an action movie because the subject matter is very much current affairs, and yet this isn't an anti-war rant or documentary. Perhaps the word we are looking for is 'issuetainment' thought provoking yet entertaining at the same time. Despite this nomenclature confusion, director Kathryn Bigelow has produced a stunning film: tense, taught, edge of your seat, informative without being preachy and hardhitting without being over the top or manipulative. This is very much a case of a director just pointing a camera and letting the story unfold.

Set in Iraq the movie tells the story of the last few days of a tour of duty by an bomb disposal squad, featuring the prima donna action junkie bomb tech as its star member. While the film is quite dry and procedural the tension rarely lets up, Nebulon would be chewing his nails throughout, if he had nails to chew. The performances are good, the script is snappy and to the point, and the photography is excellent. Shot in a unflashy hyper realism style it does a great job of drawing an audience in rather than distracting from what is happening to the characters.

On the downside, this is another film which perhaps lacks an overall narrative arch, we don't really get the impression that any of the protagonists learn or achieve anything or over the course of the film, but again, it all depends on your point of view. If you like happy endings and neat packages this is film which is not for you, if you don't mind hanging threads then dive on in, you won't be disappointed.

In summation, Bigelow has produced a sublime film. Taking place in contemporary Iraq it manages to avoid the finger pointing and recriminations that are replete even in works as great as Generation Kill. What we are left with is a film which unfolds on the screen in such a natural way that you can be forgiven for marvelling at the gritty slice of reality in front of you. Go and see this film, Nebulon commands it.

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