Zero Dark Thirty - "I'm going to smoke everyone involved in this op and then I'm going to kill Osama bin Laden"
Don't buy popcorn, don't purchase a drink from the candy bar it's long and you don't want to get up and pee and miss a crucial moment of expertly written dialogue. Just remember that the film you're about to watch is "mostly accurate" according to the CIA. These events happened, this is a dramatization of the 10 year long hunt for Osama Bin Laden. The desensitization of war and violence in the media today sadly just puts the fog of war in our heads but the ending to this film successfully opens our eyes to the brutality of it all. Jessica Chastain plays Maya, no surname given. Maya is a CIA officer who spent her entire brief career with the CIA on the "Al-Qaeda Intelligence Division", enemy #1 Osama Bin Laden.
Maya is relocated to Pakistan to work alongside CIA officer Dan, their daily routines usually consist of visiting "Black Sites" where they use "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques" to cipher information from Saudi terrorists. Slowly her task force is whittled down to just her or at least it is in her mind and she feels the increasing pressure of Washington on her back, her zeal and determination on finding Abu Faraj al-Libbi who is believed to be OBL's personal courier and ultimately the man that lead to finding OBL's compound is a very harrowing journey for Maya. Jessica Chastain's performance is extraordinary as she evokes the loneliness and depression of being a blunt object within the CIA determined to achieve her goal.
Kathryn Bigelow recent Oscar winner for "The Hurt Locker" helms this terrific clear narrative of the hunt for OBL. Her visual aesthetic for the middle east is spot on, it really immerses the audience in these dangerous events. She even went as far as to hire an Australian production designer to literally rebuild the real life compound brick for brick in which Seal Team Six raids at the end. The script is pretty hard hitting at times, prepare to wince at some of the things CIA operatives discuss very nonchalantly.
Just like Ben Affleck's "Argo" it's difficult to make a thriller out of a historical event in which the audience knows the out-come. But succeed they do. The last 30 minutes of this film are so nail biting because we never really knew the finer details. We know OBL is dead but how did the raid go down? This is the story of the CIA agent who knew she was RIGHT. What a great year for women in film, such powerful and demanding roles like Sally Field in Lincoln, Naomi Watts in The Impossible, Anne Hathaway in Les Miserables, Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook and following in strong form Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty.
It's not an action film if that's what you're looking for, it's a thriller, so there is a lot of dialogue but none of it is trivial. There are some unnecessary jabs at the previous administration and their "certainty of WMD's in Iraq", which could have been a political statement on behalf the film makers but it wasn't as obtuse as it was in "Killing Them Softly", it padded the long running time and probably could have been left on the cutting room floor. There are many evidence sifting scenes and disturbing torture scenes perhaps too many. Was showing the water boarding and noninvasive torture techniques absolutely critical to the plot? Perhaps alluding to it would spare the audience some unwanted pain, which asks the audience a question of morals. Was it worth torturing Saudi terrorists and defying the nation of Pakistan to take down Osama Bin Laden? It's not perfect but it's pretty damn close. 4/5
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