The Hurt Locker

Sunday, 10.45pm, BBC Two

“War is a drug,” says a quote at the start of Kathryn Bigelow’s sweatsoaked Iraq occupation thriller. That is what Jeremy Renner’s bomb disposal expert Sgt William James contends with as he leads his Baghdad-based US army unit out to defuse IEDs, devices in cars, even humans strapped with explosives. His addiction isn’t shared by his colleagues, particularly Anthony Mackie’s JT Sanborn who fears James’s insouciance in the face of danger will be the death of them. Bigelow builds an atmosphere of near-constant tension where everyone could be your enemy.