The war flick's had to reinvent itself over the last half-century. Back in the day when John Wayne, Van Johnson, Dana Andrews and Robert Ryan were charging up charred hillsides, all very gallant and noble, the war film made war actually look— well, fun. And if not fun, certainly honorable.

Back in the day, we didn't really glimpse much of real war. Even in Hollywood, films like "The Longest Day" (1962) showed nary a drop of on-screen blood. Soldiers fell with barely a twitch, barely a whimper. If one felt any tension in a war film, it was over which of the young, handsome co-stars wouldn't make it through the battle alive. And those who didn't died heroically and, for some reason usually left a pregnant wife behind. I guess, back in the day, that was our catchall metaphor for "war being hell."

But then Vietnam came along and the face of war emerged on the 6 o'clock news—and later bled into films like "Platoon," "Born on the Fourth of July" and "Full Metal Jacket."

Meaning the war film would never quite be the same again: Most were, in fact, anti-war films to an extent. Nobility and honor took a backseat to simply staying alive. Even in more recent films that feel honor-bound ("Black Hawk Down," "Saving Private Ryan" and HBO's unparalleled "Band of Brothers"), war emerges on screen in excruciatingly real, brutally terrifying ways. Mesmerizing, exceptional films . . . but not quite "fun" the way they were.

The war film had grown up.

But now what? Is it fashionable in film to be honorable and noble again? One might suppose the questions are these: Did we win the war in Iraq? Did we lose? Is the cause righteous or just political? Are we even the good guys anymore?

Not looking for a moral argument here, but in Hollywood, in this particular genre, those questions do seem to matter. Most of the new millennia's war film's have tanked, and those that haven't ("Three Kings," "Jarhead") lean toward the more humane aspects of war—characterrich, occasionally violent, but ultimately "feel-good" experiences. Not fun, mind you, but certainly PC.

All of which is my preamble to telling you that the mostly excellent "The Hurt Locker" is a glimpse of war's nobility as well as its rash stupidity. It feels excruciatingly real and, for the testosteroneprone, exquisitely thrilling.

A buddy of mine, a Desert Storm vet, said "The Hurt Locker" mostly gets it right depicting the nuance of living or dying in Iraq. For the rest of us, suffice it to say that the flick is riveting, one of the most relentless of war films we've seen in a good while. On a par, I'd say, with Peter Berg's underrated "The Kingdom"—perhaps not technically a war flick but close enough on the white-knuckle meter.

In "The Hurt Locker," Jeremy Renner plays Staff Sgt. William James, a member of an elite bomb squad whose job—daily—is to defuse those numerous unstable IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) scattered throughout Baghdad, waiting to kill passersby.

James has replaced the squad's leader and now must measure up to his two-man team, Sgt. Sanborn and Specialist Eldridge (Anthony Mackie, Brian Geraghty). The problem is that Sgt. James is a little erratic, either a plucky hotshot or a sociopath with suicidal tendencies. Sanborn and Eldridge aren't sure, and they're also shortlisted—counting the days when their rotation's up and they can go home again. But James' unorthodox procedures have both men wondering if they'll live that long.

Which is all you're going to get from me. This one's better with little prior knowledge.

No, "The Hurt Locker" isn't perfect. At times it holds itself at arm's length from all three characters, occasionally ambivalent or incomplete, but mostly it's a heart-pounding glimpse at one of the most insane career choices ever imagined.

Because sometimes war isn't a matter of good guys vs. bad guys. It's not about politics or nobility. Sometimes it's far simpler, a single right choice vs. a fatal mistake. And not once or twice, but on a routine basis. Sometimes, in a war flick, that's more than enough.