'Locker's' rise full of its own drama

A movie about an unpopular topic. A movie without any household names. A movie with a total production budget only slightly larger than some other films' catering expenses.

Still, director Kathryn Bigelow's Iraq War drama, "The Hurt Locker," starring Jeremy Renner, is in serious contention to take home the top prizes Sunday at the Academy Awards against "Avatar," the top-grossing movie of all time.

How the biggest story of this Oscar season came to be is a road as long and dusty and explosive as any in recent memory.

As Modesto native Renner himself said right after "The Hurt Locker" tied "Avatar" with the most nominations this year at nine a piece, "It's truly David versus Goliath at this point. I can't believe we got so many nods and we're even in the running. It's mind- boggling to think 'Avatar' made $2 billion and our little movie is on the top of the list with them."

Shot two summers ago in the blazing Jordanian desert with little fanfare and fewer expectations, the film follows a U.S. Army explosive ordnance disposal unit in Iraq. At its helm was a respected filmmaker, Bigelow, whose last film, "K-19: The Widowmaker," came six years ago.

With a budget of $11 million and three relatively unknown leads — Renner, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty — the movie required the cast and crew spend hours in the dust and sand of 125-degree Middle Eastern summer. Renner had to do a large chunk of his acting in a 100-pound bomb suit. As he told The Bee before the movie opened here: "Everything — the flies, the sweat, the redness — was real. There is no makeup in this movie; no acting in this movie. It's only reacting because of how Kathryn set up the shots."

That realism, along with the script by journalist Mark Boal, who spent time embedded with an EOD unit in Iraq, and Renner's gripping performance as as the lead bomb technician and adrenaline junkie, Staff Sgt. William James, led the film to almost immediate critical acclaim.

The film premièred at the Venice Film Festival in late 2008, then finally in June 2009 opened to limited released across the U.S.

People who knew Renner during his Modesto days saw the film during its theatrical run and were impressed by it and his performance. Renner, a Beyer High grad, came home to attend the Modesto première at the end of July.

"I thought it was good, I thought it was great," said Modesto Junior College drama instructor Michael Lynch, who directed the fledgling actor back when he was at MJC. "But I had no idea. I didn't think it would be a best picture. There have been a lot of good movies about Iraq that went nowhere, did nothing."

But buoyed by its glowing reviews — film critic Roger Ebert gave it four stars and called it "a great film, an intelligent film" — "The Hurt Locker" kept hanging around as a possible Oscar contender.

Then when several bigger-budget, bigger-name, late-season Oscar hopefuls flamed out — like "The Lovely Bones," "Amelia" and "Nine" — the movie began to build momentum.

John De Simio, executive vice president of the Broadcast Film Critics Association, said while early season movies have historically had a harder time breaking in to the Oscar conversations, films can find a way. "A film sometimes gets a life of its own," he said. "There are precedents for films that come out midyear that are of high quality, such as 'Seabiscuit.' It establishes a line in the sand and everyone else has to belly up to the bar and try to follow it."