"The Hurt Locker," Kathryn Bigelow's celebrated new action war film opening this week at Waterville's Railroad Square Cinema, comes out of nowhere as the biggest, most explosive surprise, not just of the summer, but of the whole year.

"Hurt Locker," written by Village Voice penman Mark Boal from the book by Chris Hedges and directed by the talented Bigelow, will surely come to be listed among the top five greatest war films in movie history, including Oliver Stone's "Platoon," Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" and Lewis Milestone's "A Walk In The Sun," to mention a few.

The thread that holds all of these together is, of course, the human factor. "Hurt Locker," like each of these films, grafts a human face on war. There are no valiant charges, tank battles or beach landings in "Hurt Locker." There is only the daily walk in the sun of a trio of American boys, who have chosen to become professional warriors and walk the streets of Baghdad.

We are in the presence of the three-man squad of the EOD Explosive Ordinance Disposal unit -- Spec. Owen Eldridge, (Brian Geraghty) young and fresh as daily bread, who only wants to survive and get out of the heat; the skilled no nonsense Sgt. J.T. Sanborn, (Anthony Mackie) an in-charge eight-year veteran on his third tour; and the newcomer, veteran and master bomb expert Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) a quiet, smiling professional, who treats his daily work as though he were fishing in a muddy pond in Iowa. James is in charge, the master bomb expert who walks up to the Dark Angel and with almost an embrace, disarms her.

Where the others cautiously prefer to send in the armed robot, James prefers to go in deep like a probing surgeon. His fearlessness and preternatural calm unnerve his comrades, who strive to avoid entering the "Hurt Locker," from which no one returns.

James is a man, we learn, who has found his place in the sun, no matter how short lived that may be. He is a combat junkie, an adrenaline addict with an unbelievable 873 disarmaments to his credit, a high-wire walker who likes to go higher and higher and preferably without a net. His only armor is not caring. To James, this is life. Everything else is waiting.

While his back-up team stands ready, guarding his back and scanning the rooftops for snipers, James saunters to his job as though he is delivering mail. Before long, he tires of the heavy, 139 pounds of safety equipment and simply discards it before climbing into an abandoned vehicle to search for the wire to the pile of bombs in the trunk. This is life.

Kathyrn Bigelow, a long time coming up from cultish, interesting small films, has created her masterpiece. Her technique is letter perfect.

She takes her cameraman, Barry Ackroyd, deep into the action (shot on the streets of Amman, Jordan) where she uses four or five hand-held cameras that buzz around the actor's heads like flies, and sets up one unbearable jaw dropping sequence after another. We learn early on to pay attention to things -- men with video cameras, cell phones, child beggers, the crippled cat that limps on the streets of Baghdad, a flock of goats on a desert overpass that is much more, a deserted building in the middle of nowhere that hides death.

Jeremy Renner, as James, has been rumbling around in television ("The Unusuals") and small films for a long time. He has been circling fame like a moth looking for a brighter, bigger light, and he has found one. He has the cool of McQueen, the charm of Newman and the instincts of Brando. He is the star of this great film, not just because of his contract, but because the camera is unable to look anywhere else. "The Hurt Locker" is already being talked about on talk shows and raved about by every critic. They know a winner when they see one and so will you.

J.P. Devine is a former stage and screen actor.