Having seemingly been in hiding following Harrison Ford clunker K-19, The Hurt Locker marks a welcome return to action for Katheryn Bigelow, with a true life account of Gulf War II based on Mark Boal’s book about bomb disposal experts. And it’s one of the director’s finest works. A loud and proud combat film that manages to inexorably link itself to Gulf War II, but remains fiercely apolitical, focusing on one small group of men and their mission. Here, bombs aren’t political tools – they’re volatile explosive devices- and this refusal to comment makes for some thrilling cinema.
