Iraq-set ‘Hurt Locker’ combines thrills, provocative themes

Up close: Jeremy Renner is excellent as a bomb squad soldier in “The Hurt Locker.” (Courtesy photo)

Kathryn Bigelow, who has earned her own shelf area at quality video stores for directing stylish fare such as the vampire tale “Near Dark” and the surfer-crime drama “Point Break,” both excels at delivering artistically presented action and clearly loves doing it.

This combination proves most rewarding in “The Hurt Locker,” a mix of adrenaline entertainment and art-house seriousness in which Bigelow takes us through dangerous occupied Baghdad with three bomb-squad soldiers.

The movie spells out its central point with an opening quote — “war is a drug” — and then immediately bears out that statement by killing a thrill-hooked character.

He’s played by one of the film’s biggest stars. Bigelow, blowing him up with aplomb, isn’t one to adhere to the norm.

The same is true for new bomb-squad leader William James (Jeremy Renner), who arrives at Camp Victory to replace his killed-in-action predecessor and quickly incenses teammates Sanborn (AnthonyMackie) and Eldridge (Brian Geragthy) by doing unsoldierly, hotdoggy things such as chucking his communication headset.

But as Sanborn and Eldridge discover, Sgt. James is also an ace bomb defuser with sympathetic facets. Personality complexities complement visceral action as we follow the three through scary assignments and sometimes brutal off-duty interactions.

The film has its frustrations. Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal seem to think they’re dipping into their protagonists’ heads but provide little such insight.

No Iraqi characters are remotely developed, except a DVD-selling boy (Christopher Sayegh), whose apparent fate sends James into vengeance mode and the story into phoniness.

Overall, however, this is an action pleaser and a substantial American war film. Not preachy like other Iraq-war dramas, the movie contains an interesting subject in the bomb-squad detail, and Bigelow takes smart advantage of its suspense potential.

Avoiding contrivances, she ups your anxiety by providing extended close-ups of the fingers or face of the intensely focused James as he examines a ganglion of car-bomb wires, among other challenges. By cutting from James to Sanborn and Eldridge, who, looking out for insurgents, are also in peril, she immerses you in two tense situations.

Performance-wise, Mackie and Geragthy are fine, but it is Renner who receives center-stage treatment, and, playing the gifted danger junkie William James, he gives us both a terrific action hero and something more multidimensionally satisfying.

Cameos by Guy Pearce, David Morse and Ralph Fiennes (from Bigelow’s “Strange Days”) add star power. It’s unnecessary, but if it helped get this movie green-lighted, bravo.

The Hurt Locker (three and a half stars)

Starring Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geragthy, Guy Pearce

Written by Mark Boal

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

Rated R

Running time 2 hours 10 minutes