The Hurt Locker [Blu-ray] [2008]

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Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Actors: Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes
Studio: Lions Gate Home Entertainment
Category: DVD

List Price: ~~£24.99~~
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Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars

270 reviews
Sales Rank: 428

Format: Anamorphic, PAL
Languages: English (Subtitled), English (Original Language)
Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Media: Blu-ray
Aspect Ratio: 16:9 - 1.78:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 131 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6

MPN: 9900000000000
EAN: 5060052418487
ASIN: B002KAIVMC

Theatrical Release Date: 2008
Release Date: December 28, 2009
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days

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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
Evangeline Lilly, Christopher Sayegh, Nabil Koni, Sam Spruell, Sam RedfordDirector: Kathryn Bigelow

Amazon.co.uk Review
Rightly attracting major awards attention, The Hurt Locker is a supreme, tense and gripping piece of drama. And it grabs your attention from the stunning opening scene, which perfectly gets across the dangers faced by the specialist bomb disposal squad that we spend the rest of the film following.

Chief among them is Jeremy Renner’s Sergeant William James, who is the focal point for much of The Hurt Locker. The film spends some time digging into his head and why he does what he does, and his approach doesn’t always leave him eye-to-eye with the rest of his squad. Renner, in surely a star-making performance, delivers a rounded, three-dimensional portrayal of a man you could easily write off as a maverick, and the film is significantly enriched as a result.

But then with director Kathryn Bigelow behind the camera delivering her best film to date, The Hurt Locker excels still further. Her gritty, haunting visuals look superb in high definition too, evoking the down-to-earth shooting style Bigelow employs, and making the most of the assorted set-pieces she puts on film. It’s the sound that really gets you too, cleverly eating up the full breadth of a good surround-sound set-up, and carefully teasing you more and more into the film.

Not that you’re likely to need much persuading. The Hurt Locker is a terrific war movie, and a very human one. It’s also packaged on a quality Blu-ray that matches up strong presentation with interesting extra feature. It comes very highly recommended. --Jon Foster

Customer Reviews:

Showing reviews 1-5 of 270

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Excellent film deserved of its reputation July 24, 2010
Darren Green (Leeds, UK)
1 out of 2 found this review helpful

A superb film about the realities and horrors of conflict and the addiction that the adrenalin rush of such situations can bring.
It's difficult not to get sucked into the drama and all the more real that it reflects the reality of life for many of out troops abroad.
Derved of its reputation and academy awards - simply top class.

5 out of 5 stars

Circles of Hell September 3, 2009
Graham Chapman (London)
74 out of 118 found this review helpful

'The Hurt Locker' is as good a war film as I have seen since 'Apocalypse Now', with which there are some similarities. Don't expect the operatics of the Coppola film or the psychedelic tone though.

The use of flame imagery, particularly in a scene towards the end, and the circular structure of the film in (perpetual) tours of duty, emphasize the sense of the soldiers' journey through increasing circles of hell. 'Apocalypse Now' was more poetic and this film resolutely prosaic (that is not a criticism), but both films are thoughtful, intelligent and deal with the inner mind of the soldiers as they move towards a greater understanding of themselves.

Some critics have said this is a 'non-political' film. I don't agree, but it is not overtly political. Nonetheless, questions about the reasons for the soldiers being in Iraq, the class and racial backgrounds of the soldiers and the relationship between Iraqis and American troops are an important part of the film.

Kathryn Bigelow's direction is terrific. She makes the film tense, but (somebody tell Tarantino) keeps it grounded in reality. She keeps it moving, but doesn't resort to the flash, fast-cutting, impatient film-making of, say Tony or Ridley Scott. And Jeremy Renner, as Sgt William James, the detonator of the IED's (Improvised Explosive Devices) - the man who gets to wear 'the suit' - is outstanding. I thought of a young Brando.

Most of all, next time I read or see on the news about explosions in Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere else I will think a bit more about the soldiers out there instead of letting it all wash over me as I have done in the past.

Outstanding film. See it!

5 out of 5 stars

a great film July 28, 2010
Thomas C. Hughes
0 out of 1 found this review helpful

I bought this film for a friend and got to watch it myself,I found it a very moving film giving the viewer an insight as to conflict in that part of the middle east, and,to the same extent in afghanistan,no wonder it got an oscar.

5 out of 5 stars

One of the surprise hits of 2009 December 8, 2009
Matty
26 out of 46 found this review helpful

I wasn't expecting too much from this film when I watched it. I'm not usually into war films, but having enjoyed QT's Inglorious Basterds (which is totally different to this btw) I gave it a crack. It's directed by Kathryn Bigelow who made Point Break so I was expecting a no brainer shoot em up. Far from it, this is a fantastic incredibly tense film about a group of bomb disposal experts in Iraq.
It focusses well on the relationships and bonding between the soldiers and also the differing mentalities of the lead players.
Jeremy Renner is exceptional as Sgt William James and carries much of the story. It's an excellent portrayal of a man who's an adrenaline junkie, loyal to his friends but at times reckless. There are also some great cameos from a few big name actors.
Seeing one of the characters back in the US shopping for cornflakes with his wife subtly puts across the reality of the craziness of war and what it does to a man.
Worth watching even if you're not normally into war films.

5 out of 5 stars

The Hurt Locker - One of the great "war" films December 29, 2009
Red on Black (Cardiff)
33 out of 59 found this review helpful

I experienced an interesting contrast yesterday when I took my kids to see the technically brilliant James Cameron 3D blockbuster "Avatar" which is a stunning visual treat and hugely enjoyable albeit with a story line which is essentially "Dances with Wolves" in space. I also watched in the evening "The hurt locker" on blue ray. If given a choice of which of the two films to keep and treasure it would be Kathryn Bigelow's epic study of three technicians of a specialist bomb disposal squad operating in Iraq on the streets of Baghdad. Indeed the real stars of the film are the ordinary children and adults of the troubled Iraqi capital some of whom could be potential insurgents that gives the film an overwhelming air of unpredictability and suspense.

Without giving away to much of the plot the film centres on a elite team and particularly the role of "Will" played by the excellent Jeremy Renner an adrenaline junkie who strides up to IEDs as if he was bomb proof. Sergeant Will James both loves war and yet is a mass of contradictions. Renner's performance has Oscar written all over it.

Alongside "Will" are the young GI, Specialist Owen Eldridge, played by Brian Geraghty who performance of a marine visibly cracking up is spot on. Then there is my favourite character, the experienced African-American Sergeant JT Sanborn played by Anthony Mackie who is not the "inevitable black grunt" of Vietnam films but a more subtle character who nonetheless cannot fathom his predicament. The impact that Will James already has on a team with only 38 days left until they return home combined with the sheer intensity of the Iraq experience are the central themes.

The movie is a succession of memorable set pieces but with Bigelow's direction emphasising the sparse and thus building in tension throughout. At one point I found my hands sweating and needed to pause to film because the tension is so unbearable. Similarly with the Ralph Fiennes "cameo" scene of "contractor" Brits who end up in a lengthy shoot out with insurgents one can almost feel the desert heat. There are numerous scenes like this which are also combined with the sheer tedium of being a soldier. One scene shows Renner in an American supermarket confounded at the vast array of breakfast cereals that face the American consumer. These multiple choices stand in stark contrast to the black and white risk reality of downtown Baghdad. As Sanborn once simply states "every time you suit up you live or die".

Bigelow's film is not a statement about geo politics; it does not moralise about the conflict but gives you its smells, flavours and tastes from ground view. It is nerve shredding, visceral and captures the experience of what Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian describes as "the physical trauma of being in close proximity, time after time, to the deafening blast of an explosion, controlled or otherwise. That obscene noise and, perhaps just as awful, the tense prelude of compressed silence, encloses you in a tight prison of pain: the "hurt locker".

If you like war films high on action and combat get "Black Hawk Down" if alternatively you recognise that war is both the most sobering experience but also an assault on the senses then the Hurt Locker should be purchased ASAP since it is by far the best film of 2009.

Showing reviews 1-5 of 270

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