DVD review: The Hurt Locker

Kathryn Bigelow's highly impressive, small-scale movie about the Iraq war suggests a best director Oscar battle with ex-husband James Cameron's Avatar. Jeremy Renner is a revelation in the lead and British cinematographer Barry Ackroyd builds unbearable tension, as he did in United 93. The film aims, says Bigelow on a DVD interview, "to replicate the chaos of war and to put the audience in the actors' shoes". Both are pulled off brilliantly, especially in slo-mo scenes such as the earth moving after an explosion, the like of which I've never seen before. Based on the dispatches of a journalist embedded with a bomb disposal squad, there is no speechifying. It's just a cool look at a unit of three guys three guys doing a strong contender for world's worst job.