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58 (Untitled)
96 35 Shots of Rum
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78 Afghan Star
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66 Afterschool
xx All the Best
58 American Casino
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76 Baader Meinhof Complex, The
86 Beaches of Agnes, The
13 Beautiful Life, A
70 Beeswax
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71 Big Fan
66 Black Dynamite
51 Blind Date
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35 Blue Tooth Virgin, The
26 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
57 Boys Are Back, The
45 Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
81 Bright Star
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xx Carriers
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59 Collapse
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82 Cove, The
75 Crude
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67 Departures
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70 Earth Days
24 Eating Out 3: All You Can Eat
85 Education, An
55 Endgame
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56 Fifty Dead Men Walking
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80 Food, Inc.
28 Free Style
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50 Fuel
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50 Give Me Your Hand
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89 Goodbye Solo
52 Grace
64 Harmony and Me
81 Headless Woman, The
xx Heretics, The
63 Horse Boy, The
73 House of the Devil, The
xx How to Seduce Difficult Women
74 Humpday
94 Hurt Locker, The
29 I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
16 If One Thing Matters: A Film About Wolfgang Tillmans
75 In Search of Beethoven
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46 Killing Kasztner
19 Labor Day
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66 Liverpool
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80 Lorna's Silence
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xx Ministers, The
59 More Than a Game
67 Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
34 Motherhood
62 My One and Only
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47 Ong Bak 2: The Beginning
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xx Painter Sam Francis, The
54 Paper Heart
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77 Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
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40 Shrink
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77 Skin Too Few: The Days of Nick Drake, A
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70 Visual Acoustics
55 Walt & El Grupo
67 Way We Get By, The
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64 Where is Where?
xx White on Rice
74 Woman in Berlin, A
69 World's Greatest Dad
70 Yes Men Fix the World
69 Yoo-Hoo, Mrs. Goldberg
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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

Hurt Locker, The

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Hurt Locker, The reviews
94
7.7 User Score:

Movie Info

Genre(s): Action  |  Drama  |  Suspense/Thriller  |  War

Written by: Mark Boal

Directed by: Kathryn Bigelow

Release Date:
Theatrical: June 26, 2009

Running Time: 131 minutes, Color

Origin: USA

Summary

RATING: R for war violence and language

Starring Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty, Ralph Fiennes, and Guy Pearce

The Hurt Locker is an intense portrayal of elite soldiers who have one of the most dangerous jobs in the world: disarming bombs in the heat of combat. When a new sergeant, James, takes over a highly trained bomb disposal team amidst violent conflict, he surprises his two subordinates, Sanborn and Eldridge, by recklessly plunging them into a deadly game of urban combat. James behaves as if he's indifferent to death. As the men struggle to control their wild new leader, the city explodes into chaos, and James' true character reveals itself in a way that will change each man forever. (Summit Entertainment)

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The result is an intense, action-driven war pic, a muscular, efficient standout that simultaneously conveys the feeling of combat from within as well as what it looks like on the ground.

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100

The New Yorker David Denby

A small classic of tension, bravery, and fear, which will be studied twenty years from now when people want to understand something of what happened to American soldiers in Iraq. If there are moviegoers who are exhausted by the current fashion for relentless fantasy violence, this is the convincingly blunt and forceful movie for them.

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100

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

There's something about this story, and this war, that brings out the stripped-down conceptual artist in her (Bigelow): Against blank canvases of desert sand and rubble, explosive wires are linked to nerve ends, and everything that matters depends on the twitch of a muscle or a finger on a button.

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100

Village Voice Scott Foundas

A full-throttle body shock of a movie. It gets inside you like a virus, puts your nerves in a blender, and twists your guts into a Gordian knot.

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100

The New York Times A.O. Scott

The best nondocumentary American feature made yet about the war in Iraq.

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100

Slate Dana Stevens

After The Hurt Locker (which is without question the most exciting and least ideological movie yet made about the war in Iraq), everyone will remember Renner's name.

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100

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

A first-rate action thriller, a vivid evocation of urban warfare in Iraq, a penetrating study of heroism and a showcase for austere technique, terse writing and a trio of brilliant performances. Most of all, though, it’s an instant classic that demonstrates, in a brutally hot and dusty laboratory setting, how the drug of war hooks its victims and why they can’t kick the habit.

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100

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Overwhelmingly tense, overflowing with crackling verisimilitude, it's both the film about the war in Iraq that we've been waiting for and the kind of unqualified triumph that's been long expected from director Kathryn Bigelow.

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100

New York Daily News Staff (Not credited)

What you'll remember most will be Renner's remarkably complex commander. By the time we finally figure him out, it's become clear we've witnessed a star-making performance, in a movie that deserves to stand as one of the defining films of the decade.

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100

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

A great film, an intelligent film, a film shot clearly so that we know exactly who everybody is and where they are and what they’re doing and why.

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100

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

This one enters the pantheon of great American war films.

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100

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

When viewers are ultimately released from The Hurt Locker's exhilarating vice grip, they'll find themselves shaken, energized and, more than likely, eager to see it again.

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100

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Such is the extraordinary achievement of The Hurt Locker: it has the perspective of years when those years have yet to pass.

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100

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Like every war before it, the U.S. invasion of Iraq has generated its share of movies. But The Hurt Locker is the first of them that can properly be called a masterpiece.

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100

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The Hurt Locker redefines war-film electricity.

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100

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Calvin Wilson

At once an unforgettable war film and a brilliant character study.

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100

Empire Ian Nathan

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.

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91

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Renner gives a full-bore performance of great individuality and industriousness, but essentially his character is as glamorized as any classic Westerner.

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91

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

For the first hour or more, The Hurt Locker boldly forsakes any conventional narrative hook beyond the ongoing tensions between these men and the terrifying grind of defusing bombs day after day.

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90

NPR Bob Mondello

The adrenaline rush of war has been largely missing from Hollywood's Iraq, but it's certainly front and center in The Hurt Locker, the first war movie in a while that feels as if it could have starred John Wayne.

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90

Time Richard Corliss

A near-perfect movie about men in war, men at work. Through sturdy imagery and violent action, it says that even Hell needs heroes.

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90

New York Magazine David Edelstein

The Hurt Locker might be the first Iraq-set film to break through to a mass audience because it doesn't lead with the paralysis of the guilt-ridden Yank. The horror is there, but under the rush.

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90

The Hollywood Reporter Deborah Young

Tensely action-packed and muscularly directed by Kathryn Bigelow, this tale of an elite U.S. army bomb disposal unit in Baghdad is a familiar story in new clothes, targeted at the young male demographic.

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90

Film Threat Nick Antosca

Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker is a grinding, nightmarish machine.

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89

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

The tension is enough to make you slightly sick, and the overall mood of the thing is deeply dispiriting, but then, nobody ever said that war isn't hell.

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88

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

In The Hurt Locker, the thrill is unexpectedly contagious. You don't realize how riveted you are until you're back on American soil observing James in civilian life.

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88

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Fused with paranoia and almost unbearable suspense, The Hurt Locker is powerful stuff.

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88

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Vivid, assured and extremely suspenseful.

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88

ReelViews James Berardinelli

This is a tense, well-crafted motion picture that keeps viewers on edge. It's an exhausting 130 minutes; many viewers will leave the theater feeling drained.

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88

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Here's the Iraq War movie for those who don't like Iraq War movies.

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88

USA Today Claudia Puig

Both a psychological portrait and an exciting action film.

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83

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Episodic and, at times, overwrought. And occasionally its deliberate opacity becomes too cloudy. But the things that shine through are remarkable. War is indeed Hell, it tells us, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing if you're filled with demons.

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80

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

The drawback is that even though The Hurt Locker is extremely effective in places, it ultimately feels unformed and somewhat unfinished.

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63

New York Post Kyle Smith

Stretched both timewise and for plausibility.

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60

Variety Derek Elley

Boal's script stirs a little of everything into the pot, which boils down into seven setpieces divided by brief intervals of camaraderie/conflict among the three protags.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 7.7 (out of 10) based on 187 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Alex K. gave it a5:
The movie was fairly exciting and suspenseful, but the ending left me feeling detached from the characters. Seriously, if the film is trying to be deep and thought-provoking it shouldn't fall back on cliches of heavy metal listening, liquor swilling, and punching contests.

Keith P gave it a10:
I like The Hurt Locker. The movie isn't boring. This movie gets an A+ from me. I highly recommend this movie.

Bill F gave it a10:
By far one of the best war movies made. This movie may or may not be an accurate representation of what bomb squads in Iraq are faced with but it is a fantastic film regardless.

h zac gave it a4:
This movie was good for the first 20 minutes of the movie suspenseful then the rest had me rumbling my lis and slouching in my chair don't see it

Jim P. gave it a10:
An awesome film about the adrenaline of war, and why those who do it well, do it very well!

R W gave it a0:
Really!?!? 10's for this garbage. This movie was so painful to actually sit through. There of course were all the stereotypes of us military people. If this movie was about a race or sexual orientation all those 10's given by the masses of clueless people would have been 0's with long rants about how insensitive and demeaning the movie was toward people it was supposed to be about. This movie is a fairy tale set in a current event setting. Characters are ridiculous stereotypes who apparently have no oversight which is sort of an inherent part of the military (for those of you who have never bothered to serve). The situations are erroneous and overly contrived. Basically this movie was an atrocity. If it fits your political stance and reinforces your beliefs great, but please don't try and pass this off as an example of what is going on in Iraq. Thanks.

Andrew R gave it a5:
This movie was not nearly as good as the critics seem to think it was. Not absolutely horrendous but not that great.

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