Hurt Locker, The

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.

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.

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.

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.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

This one enters the pantheon of great American war films.

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.

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.

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.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

The Hurt Locker redefines war-film electricity.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Calvin Wilson

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Film Threat Nick Antosca

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

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.

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.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

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

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Vivid, assured and extremely suspenseful.

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.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

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

USA Today Claudia Puig

Both a psychological portrait and an exciting action film.

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.

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.

New York Post Kyle Smith

Stretched both timewise and for plausibility.

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.