By Paul Popiel

All you Oscar followers can bet on three things: Jeremy Renner’s nomination for Best Actor, Kathryn Bigelow’s nomination for Best Director and “The Hurt Locker’s” nomination for “Best Picture.” None of this should come as a surprise. Bigelow’s film has received near-universal acclaim, won four different awards at last year’s Venice Film Festival, and pops up any time anyone discusses the 2010 Academy Awards.

Let’s start with the Best Picture nomination. “The Hurt Locker” is one of the best films thus far about the Iraq War. And yet, upon further reflection, it is almost banal in its simplicity and it seems there is very little original about it. Like other modern war films, it tries not to politicize the conflict it portrays (although, like other modern war films, it does not succeed entirely by its very nature, since it covers a real, politicized war). Like other modern war films, it focuses on the soldiers instead of the government bureaucracy that sent them into battle. “The Hurt Locker” belongs to the tradition of war films that show the horror of war through the immediacy of the soldiers’ experience.

Here, instead of a platoon at war, a unit in search of a soldier behind enemy lines, or a group of soldiers going by boat down a river to kill a colonel gone mad, we follow a bomb squad. There is scarcely a narrative beyond the everyday tensions, stresses and routines of soldiers responsible for disarming explosives. And yet, “The Hurt Locker” is a fantastic film. What sets it apart?

For one, there is Kathryn Bigelow’s meticulous direction. A seasoned action director of hits like “Point Break” and “Near Dark,” she has never been this disciplined. Her commitment to realism can be seen in the film’s locations (Jordan standing in for Iraq), in the casting of actual Iraqi refugees as extras and in the technical attention to detail with respect to the mechanics of bomb explosions as well as their disarmament. Barry Ackroyd, the film’s cinematographer, and the man behind the hyper-realistic “United 93,” keeps the camera at an “intimate distance” from the story. While it places us amidst the action, it also remains objective and reserved, striking a tension-filled balance between subjectivity of the soldiers’ experience, and the stark reality in which they operate.

Bigelow directs with incredible self-confidence. From the very beginning, in which an explosion is deconstructed down to its molecular components with almost scientific curiosity, the bomb disarming sequences are something of a frenetic marvel. She exploits the inherent tension in scenes of soldiers approaching an armed explosive. More than that, the defusing of bombs serves as a fantastic metaphor for the volatility of the Iraq War itself, and our presence there. Every misstep could result in a massive cataclysm.

SSgt. William James, played by Jeremy Renner, is a bomb expert with an addiction to his job and the war in general. For James, the stakes give him the adrenaline rush without which he cannot function. Like a drug addict, James becomes an instrument of his obsession and a wheel in its machinery. It is no coincidence that his personality mirrors an explosive device set to go off. His increasingly careless behavior gives him an incredible rush but also endangers those around him; it is self-destructive. In that, he becomes a subtle comment on a war’s impact on soldiers and the difficulty of functioning in its absence. James never feels at home at home.

Renner plays the role with a superb concentration, and becomes as unhinged as the camera that observes him is disciplined. He is natural, convincing and sure to garner a nomination for his performance.

The combination of Bigelow’s fantastic direction and Renner’s performance gives “The Hurt Locker” a raw documentary feel. Given the realism of the film, all bets are off and we, like the protagonists, are at the war’s mercy. In the end, “The Hurt Locker,” an action film par excellence, shows us hell and those it has so successfully seduced. They will keep coming until a bomb stops them.