Zero Dark Thirty

It’s simultaneously a blessing and a curse that I often wind up seeing films post-theatrical release. Even though I don’t intentionally seek out spoilers (OK, I do, but I’m getting better about it), I do still read reviews of films. The best reviews convey two things: 1) what the author thought of the film in question, and 2) enough information to give the reader an informed opinion as to whether or not said reader will enjoy the film, regardless of the author’s response.

Those reviews, coupled with the near-unanimous praise the film has received from all quarters caused me to believe that I would fall in love with this film, becoming swept up in its high-tension, immaculately-crafted story of the hunt for, and eventual assassination of, master terrorist Osama bin Laden.

I was so very, very wrong.

It starts well enough: under a black screen, a restrained opening plays audio (I do not know if it was real or dramatized) of phone calls placed on September 11, 2001 as the terrorist attacks that brought down the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were occurring. The film then introduces us to Maya (Jessica Chastain), one of many CIA workers tasked with finding the man responsible for those terrorist attacks. We follow Maya over the next twelve years, seeing small glimpses of her as she grows from determined but unsure interrogator to a woman whose sole reason in life is the location and capture of Osama bin Laden.

The film was in production for a long time, and the ending had to be hastily rewritten to account for the real-life assault on the bin Laden compound, which resulted in his death. What a boon this became for the film (to say nothing of the country as a whole), as the thirty-minute compound assault that serves as the film’s final act is a breathtaking, tour-de-force whirlwind, following Seal Team Six into the dark den of the most notorious terrorist in American history and emerging victorious.

Unfortunately, the two hours preceding that astonishi...

Quite a flat movie. The story is interesting and also the fact that it shows how US has used tortures (which everybody but some US citizens already knew) but not much more than that.