Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie in The Hurt Locker (Jonathan Olley / Summit Entertainment)
Kathryn Bigelow’s Iraq War drama The Hurt Locker, which follows a bomb disposal unit as they go about doing their work, was the big winner with the Chicago Film Critics Association. The film won in each of the five categories it was nominated for: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay (for Mark Boal), Best Actor (Jeremy Renner) and Best Cinematography (Barry Ackroyd).
This is one of Mark Boal's few wins thus far. Despite the popularity of The Hurt Locker among US film critics, Boal has been usually bypassed in favor of the screenwriters of Up in the Air, A Serious Man, or (500) Days of Summer. It must have helped that the Chicago critics, unlike many of their counterparts, have two screenplay categories. In fact, Up in the Air's Jason Reitman and Sheldon Turner received the Best Adapted Screenplay award.
Among the Chicago critics' other multiple winners were Pete Docter's animated hit Up, which won for Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score, and Carey Mulligan, named both Most Promising Performer and Best Actress for Lone Scherfig's coming-of-age drama An Education.
The White Ribbon, Michael Haneke’s drama about strange goings-on in a small village in pre-World War I Germany, was named Best Foreign Language Film, while Anvil: The True Story of Anvil, described in the Chicago critics' release as "a real-life This is Spinal Tap following a long-running and low-selling heavy metal band as they make one final attempt at achieving stardom," won the award for Best Documentary. Neill Blomkamp was voted the Most Promising Filmmaker for the sleeper hit District 9.
But the Chicago critics' most astounding surprises were found in the supporting categories: Christoph Waltz and Mo'Nique won for, respectively, Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds and Lee Daniels' Precious.