... An unflinching look at the personal cost of being really good at a really tough job.

| Sep 30, 2022

The Hurt Locker is without a doubt one of the best war pictures I have ever seen, and I have seen most of them.

| Jan 17, 2018

I probably should have seen this movie when I had the chance in theaters, but as a DVD it didn't live up to the hype, though it was well done.

| Original Score: B+ | Sep 12, 2017

More than anything, The Hurt Locker is a high-wire study of men at work, its lack of overt politics replaced by a revelatory central performance.

| Feb 16, 2016

There is much that is fiercely modest about its ambitions. And, for a war film, it is often disconcertingly quiet.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 25, 2015

An important, intense, nail-biting experience -- really quite unforgettable.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 25, 2015

It's a film about why some soldiers love war, a theme that's rare in war films made by men.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 25, 2015

Her new film, The Hurt Locker, is both a structuralist war movie-it could be titled 'Seven Instances of Dismantling an Improvised Explosive Device'-and a totally immersive, off-the-charts high-anxiety experience from beginning to end.

| Jul 12, 2013

Director Kathryn Bigelow, doing her run-'n'-gun best, doesn't mine traditional suspense so much as impart a queasy feeling of monotony.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 24, 2011

There is something original and distinctive about the film's willingness to admit that for some men (and many moviegoers) war carries an intrinsic dramatic charge.

| Jul 7, 2010

Succeeds where so many others have failed, by crafting a compelling Iraq war film.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Feb 17, 2010

The most literally exciting film you will see this year. Forget the off-putting banner of another Iraq movie - go, watch, marvel, endure and book in the palliative of a stiff drink afterwards.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 29, 2009

Bigelow's film combines an expert management of tension with a sensitive and journalistic attention to detail: she has one eye on the truth and the other on the multiplex.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 29, 2009

For, in short, in its gutsy, bare-bones beauty, The Hurt Locker is not simply a war movie. It is war poetry.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 29, 2009

A blazingly powerful action movie... whose unpretentious clarity makes for a refreshing change.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 29, 2009

A super-sharp, nerve-shredding thriller that reveals more about the realities of contemporary military conflict than most documentaries.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 29, 2009

The action itself is episodic, with every ounce of tension eked from some stunning set pieces where lingering shots accentuate the bleak cinematography and stripped down sound design to draw the maximum heat and hopelessness of this hell on earth.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 29, 2009

The film sweats out its truth from its central character.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 29, 2009

There will be other challengers in time, but so far The Hurt Locker is easily the best film to come out of the Iraq war.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Aug 29, 2009

Director Kathryn Bigelow brilliantly surfs a line between challenging, realistic grit and Hollywood thrills, her gripping buddy movie all the more exciting for not blindly following the orders of most big action flicks.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 29, 2009