Theater Movie: The Hurt Locker (2009)

The Hurt Locker

The Hurt Locker is a 2009 American war film. It follows a United States Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team during the Iraq War. The film was directed by Kathryn Bigelow. The screenplay was written by Mark Boal, a freelance writer who was embedded as a journalist in 2004 with a US bomb squad in Iraq. It stars Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty as members of a U.S. Army EOD unit in Iraq and follows their tour together as they contend with defusing bombs, the threat of insurgency, and the tension that develops among them. The film was shot in Jordan, within miles of the Iraqi border.

It was first released theatrically in Italy in 2008, when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival. After being shown at the Toronto International Film Festival in North America, it was picked up for distribution in the United States by Summit Entertainment. It was released in the United States on June 26, 2009, in New York and Los Angeles. The independent film received a more widespread theatrical release in the United States on July 24, 2009. Because the 2008 film was not originally released in the U.S. (at least in an Oscar-qualifying run in Los Angeles) until 2009, it was eligible to be judged for that year's awards, the 82nd Academy Awards held in 2010.

The Hurt Locker earned awards and honors from critics' organizations, festivals and groups. It was nominated for nine Academy Awards and won six, including Best Picture and Best Director for Bigelow, who became the first woman to win the award. The film also swept the 2010 BAFTA Awards, winning best film, director, original screenplay, editing, cinematography and sound.

Starring : Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Christian Camargo, Guy Pearce.

Directed by : Kathryn Bigelow.

Produced by : Tony Mark, Greg Shapiro, Kathryn Bigelow.

Release Date : June 26th, 2009 (limited); July 24th (wide).

Distributors : Summit Entertainment, LLC

Plot :

In the summer of 2004, Sergeant J.T. Sanborn and Specialist Owen Eldridge of Bravo Company are at the volatile center of the war, part of a small counterforce specifically trained to handle the homemade bombs, or Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), that account for more than half of American hostile deaths and have killed thousands of Iraqis. A high-pressure, high-stakes assignment, the job leaves no room for mistakes, as they learn when they lose their team leader on a mission. When Staff Sergeant William James takes over the team, Sanborn and Eldridge are shocked by what seems like his reckless disregard for military protocol and basic safety measures. And yet, in the fog of war, appearances are never reliable for long. Is James really a swaggering cowboy who lives for peak experiences and the moments when the margin of error is zero - or is he a consummate professional who has honed his esoteric craft to high-wire precision? As the fiery chaos of Baghdad swirls around them, the men struggle to understand and contain their new leader long enough for them to make it home. They have only 38 days left in their tour of Iraq, but with each new mission comes another deadly encounter, and as James blurs the line between bravery and bravado, it seems only a matter of time before disaster will strike.