Latest 'Hurt Locker' Trailer Bombs (In a Good Way)

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Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker has bounced around the festival circuit for more than six months to virtually unilateral acclaim -- so much so that the latest trailer for the Iraq bomb-squad thriller (opening June 26) feels almost anticlimactic. Almost.

I think I'm officially the last critic on Earth who hasn't yet seen Bigelow's latest, and I've avoided reading much of the superlatives following Locker from Venice (where it won the SIGNIS Grand Prize) to Toronto (where Summit Entertainment purchased it) and now to the condensed two-and-a-half minute version (boasting blurbs a plenty) that emerged on Wednesday. Hype is poisonous more often than it's not, and in any case, Bigelow's work is typically worth the wait to see for oneself.

So consider me reassured by the trailer, which dices Jeremy Renner's "Explosive Ordinance Disposal" expert into a few dozen sassy, world-weary pieces. His fellow Spirit Award nominee Anthony Mackie complements him with a sobriety more consistent with their duties on the ground and the uniforms on their backs. David Morse shows up as a mouthy officer of some sort, with terror-eyed Brian Geraghty looking on with the rough draft of shellshock.

Which would all be Full Metal Jacket-y enough to command watchability, but then there are the real stars: The bombs. Wires, casings, powder and the craters they leave behind. The spot likely gives too much of Locker's style (if not quite the mystery) away, but the tension-breakers here work cleanly and compellingly. Summit has something on its hands here -- if its long-delay strategy hasn't blown up in its face already. Ahem.

VERDICT: Sold! And take that, Michael Bay.



Comments

  • David says:

    I saw this at an IFP event for ISA voters and it's amazing. It's her best movie since Near Dark, although not as awesome as Point Break.