Finally, the transcendent Iraq war movie.
If, like me, you have resisted the filmmaking charms of Kathryn Bigelow (“Near Dark,” “Blue Steel,” “Point Break,” “Strange Days,” “K-19: The Widowmaker”), it’s time to give in.
Bigelow has modulated her exploitative urges, tamed her heavy hand (for the most part) and come up with a film about the war in Iraq that is both specific to that contentious struggle and universal in the way of all great war movies.
“The Hurt Locker,” which recalls Don Siegel’s “Hell is for Heroes” (1962), takes place in a Baghdad wilderness of wounded cats, screaming jets, rumbling Humvees and audio tape fluttering from electrical wires like diabolical seaweed.
The story begins with a little robot in scenes so nail-biting they blow that other robot movie “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” to Katmandu. Are you ready to see how an explosion scours rust and turns pebbles into deadly projectiles?
Say hello to the soldiers of the Army EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal). These guys wear what looks like a diving suit in their work, are acutely aware of the “kill zone” and sometimes wax poetic about such things as shrapnel.
When the wickedly competent Sgt. JT Sanborn (Anthony Mackie) and panicky Spc. Owen Eldridge (Brian Geraghty) meet their new team leader, Staff Sgt. William James (a breakout turn by Jeremy Renner), they are not happy.
He’s a rowdy and reckless “redneck,” and he takes the kind of chances that get him and other people killed. He is, in the parlance of the Iraq war, an “adrenalin junkie,” and we just know he loves the smell of napalm in the morning.
Should his team members kill him to save themselves?
Accompanied by the grinding riffs of Ministry’s “Khyber Pass” and other titles, “The Hurt Locker” is about the esprit de corps of combat troops, manifold dangers and unique thrills of armed conflict and the split seconds that end lives.
Like her screen soldiers, Bigelow displays extreme competence and concentration. With one shot of Sgt. James back home, dumbfounded by a surfeit of supermarket cereals, she captures a veteran’s sense of dislocation and alienation.
Bigelow also demonstrates an artist’s eye for the beauty and functionality of guns and other weapons and an appreciation for the elemental power unleashed by bombs. In comparison, Michael Bay’s brand of movie mayhem is witless beyond belief.
If it’s hard to believe that Sgt. James defuses more than 800 bombs without killing himself, it’s also not hard to put it aside. Featuring Guy Pearce, Ralph Fiennes and David Morse in crucial supporting roles, the film is a terrific achievement.
Take the terrifying plunge into “The Hurt Locker.”
Rated R. At AMC Loews Boston Common and Kendall Square Cinema.
(“The Hurt Locker” contains extreme violence and profanity.)
