The Hurt Locker

In Theaters June 25

You could say that U.S. soldiers in Iraq had a common mission: defuse the ticking time bomb of insurgency. Members of the Army bomb disposal unit did that literally, and director Kathryn Bigelow's tight-lipped war movie focuses on one G.I. (Jeremy Renner: superb) with the skill, nerves and near-suicidal bravado needed for the job. There's a sick, primal tension in the sequences where Renner tries to keep a car, a building or an Iraqi civilian from blowing up; we dare you not to cringe. A near-perfect movie about men in war, men at work, The Hurt Locker uses sturdy imagery and violent action to show that even Hell needs heroes.

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