Reviewed: The Hurt Locker

Maybe one of the biggest things I'll miss when I move out of New York will be the movies, specifically, the ability to see anything you want; the lowest budget, the smallest indie gem, the movies that only make it to limited release. (I won't miss, however, the higher probability that your fellow moviegoer will be eating pork rolls and fried rice, or having a ten minute long conversation on their cell phone.)

The Hurt Locker is the best movie I've seen in a long time. It follows a small unit of bomb defusing soldiers (Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty) as they try to survive their last 40 days in Iraq. As with any bomb movie, you're gonna expect tension, but this thing is Tense to the very end, so that when the soldiers finally make it home you're still sitting on the edge of your seat, waiting for one of them to fall off a ladder or slip in the shower.

But it's beautiful, too. The way a shell falls delicately into sand. Dust on eyelashes (and Anthony Mackie's got some killer ones.) Jeremy Renner, too, is amazing to watch. I'm still in an meandering depression over the cancellation of The Unusuals. I predict this guy will blow up soon (hardy har, I swear that wasn't intentional) because he's really, absolutely, that good. The movie wouldn't be what it is without him.

And The Hurt Locker is one of my favorite kinds of movies, where I can revel in my useless movie database brain and delight in everyone who pops up: pretty Evangeline Lilly from Lost, Christian Camargo (psychopath brother from Dexter), David Morse (creeper from Disturbia, the Hack), Guy Pearce, and my favorite, Ralph Fiennes, who shows up for a brief but memorable role as a Blackwater-type dude, looking as rugged and bad-ass handsome as he's been since The English Patient.

100 Stars.