LOS ANGELES, Feb 28, 2010 (AFP) — Iraq war drama, The Hurt Locker, has been engulfed by controversy in the final sprint to the Oscars finishing line but should still win the coveted best picture prize at the awards extravaganza, analysts said Sunday.

The gritty independent film about a US army bomb disposal unit in Baghdad had emerged as the overwhelming favourite to win the top honour at next Sunday’s 82nd Academy Awards after winning a string of other honours this year.

However, the film’s relentless procession towards best picture has been jolted in the past few days after it emerged that one of the movie’s producers, Nicolas Chartier, had broken strict rules concerning negative campaigning.

Chartier could face censure from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences after sending emails to swathes of Oscar voters urging them to “vote for The Hurt Locker” instead of “a 500-million-dollar film”.

Chartier’s emails were seen as a direct attack on a best picture rival, James Cameron’s big-budget science-fiction blockbuster, Avatar, a clear breach of Academy rules which forbid negative campaigning.

Frenchman Chartier was forced to issue an embarrassing apology for his initial email, describing it as “inappropriate and stupid”.

“My email to you was out of line and not in the spirit of the celebration of cinema that this acknowledgement is,” Chartier wrote. “I was even more wrong, both personally and professionally, to ask for your help in encouraging others to vote for the film and to comment on another movie.

A spokeswoman for the Academy declined to comment on what action — if any — might be taken against Chartier.

Analysts have speculated that sanctions could range from withholding tickets to the Oscars show for individuals connected to the film all the way to the nuclear option of eliminating the film from the best picture race.

Pundits however are skeptical that the controversy will adversely impact The Hurt Locker’s Oscars hopes, noting that the furore erupted only days before Tuesday’s 5:00pm deadline for final ballots.

“When it’s this late in the game, most of the ballots or a good percentage of them will be in,” said Pete Hammond, Maxim magazine film critic and an awards

Veteran Oscarologist Tom O’Neil, from the Los Angeles Times’s theenvelope.com agreed.

“I’d say around three-quarters of the ballots were done by the time this broke,” O’Neil told AFP. “The widespread consensus is that The Hurt Locker has it in the bag and that even these issues aren’t going to trip it up.”

This year’s Oscars, which take place at the Kodak Theater, will see eight other films vying for best picture along with Avatar and The Hurt Locker.

Other nominees include South Africa’s acclaimed science-fiction thriller District 9, Pixar’s animated Up, sports drama The Blind Side, and Quentin Tarantino’s World War II revenge fantasy, Inglourious Basterds.

Recession-era drama, Up In the Air, is also nominated along with low budget films including An Education, Precious and A Serious Man.