ZERO DARK THIRTY REVIEW, by Jordan B. -5 / 5"I'm not your friend. I'm not gonna help you. I'm going to break you. Any questions?"
The ten-year manhunt for the world's most wanted terrorist leader is a story we all followed and one whose ending will likely go down in history as one of the twenty-first century's most triumphant moments, both for America and for many others across the globe. With ZERO DARK THIRTY, director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriting partner Mark Boal have taken those ten years and condensed them into 157 very deliberate, riveting, and powerful minutes. Much like the manhunt itself, ZERO DARK THIRTY is a powerhouse, a thrilling and winding tale that requires patience but arrives with an ending worth waiting for.
September 11, 2001 was a Tuesday. ZERO DARK THIRTY begins with a bone-chilling opening sequence that brings us back to that dark day. Bigelow shows us nothing but black, and layers tens or perhaps hundreds of audio recordings of phone calls from hijacked-airplane passengers and those trapped in burning towers to their respective loved ones and to emergency operators. It is a stark, stripped sequence that is ultimately extremely affecting.
But so, too, is the next extended sequence, one that takes place in 2003 and shows a terrorist at an unnamed detention facility relentlessly tortured by a member of the CIA, Dan (Jason Clarke), and his colleagues. Wanted is information that will hopefully lead to the capture of Osama bin Laden, but given is nothing. And so the torture continues.
Many have condemned Bigelow and Boal for these extended torture sequences, with some critics and viewers claiming that it glorifies torture and intelligence officials stating that it incorrectly implies that these "enhanced interrogation techniques,", such as water-boarding and sleep deprivation, garnered key information that led to bin Laden's capture.
I will briefly take an aside and add my two cents with this: 1) I don't agree that the film takes the stance that torture is "good" or permissible, and 2) I don't agree that the film implies that the torture of CIA detainees directly led to the capture of Osama bin Laden. But I digress.
The rest of the film follows newcomer CIA agent Maya (Jessica Chastain) and her colleagues as they sift through years of intelligence data, with more coming in than they can handle and most of it a paper trail leading to dead ends. That is, until Maya follows a lead that, with her undying confidence and ruthless conviction, garners a name to follow and eventually a location to scope out: the Abbottabad, Pakistan compound that housed Osama bin Laden and his all-important courier.
ZERO DARK THIRTY closes with a thrilling raid that will surely keep you on the edge of your seat, or bobbing your knee up and down, or biting your nails, or whatever your nervous tick may be. Bigelow creates tension that is palpable, even though we already know the outcome.
Much like David Fincher's 2007 crime-thriller ZODIAC, ZERO DARK THIRTY is a cold, calculated procedural of whose beginning and ending we are fully aware but whose events in-between we might not be. ZERO DARK THIRTY sheds light on these in-between events via first-hand accounts of the manhunt for bin Laden, dramatized to ensure full effect on-screen. Though obviously condensed, the film is certainly compelling, and unfolds swiftly and with ease.
The success of ZERO DARK THIRTY as a motion picture rests on the shoulders of two very capable women: Academy Award winning director Kathryn Bigelow and Academy Award nominated star Jessica Chastain.
Bigelow's execution here is nothing short of masterful. The film is 157 minutes long but plays like a 100-minute thriller due to Bigelow's ability to pack as much punch in each moment as humanly possible. And yet, with all this information to present, she never forgets that there is a very real human element behind all that intelligence.
Enter Chastain as Maya, a tough-as-nails woman who takes on the ball-breaking task of finding bin Laden with fierce tenacity and exciting verve. Chastain, in a word, is exceptional. She plays the role close to the chest, wearing Maya's emotions on her sleeve and crafting a performance that never feels forced. It simply feels real, as though Chastain is her true-life CIA counterpart. And there is no better acting than acting that feels real.
ZERO DARK THIRTY is perhaps 2012′s most vital film, not because of the politics people try to pull from it but because of the story it tells, or rather, the story Bigelow and Boal allow to tell itself. This is a satisfying procedural at its finest, a gripping, compelling, dramatic thriller that begs to be seen and discussed. It's a story our nation remembers, and one we will never forget.
There's a reason Zero Dark Thirty was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay, the movie is just that good. It may not be a movie for all audiences. If you go see this movie expecting to see a movie that looks like a James Bond or Jason Bourne action extravaganza, you might find yourself sorely disappointed. Likewise it's not a Tom Clancy techno thriller. Zero Dark Thirty is an honest drama showing the CIA's decade long struggle to find the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.
The main character of the movie is CIA analyst named Maya (played by Jessica Chastain); no last name is given. Maya enters the hunt for Osama Bin Laden at an undisclosed CIA facility where captured terrorists are being held and questioned. She arrives to witness the "enhanced" interrogation of Ammar, a courier for Saudi terrorists. Through Ammar's interrogation and many others, Maya begins to piece together information on Osama's network, learning of a senior courier named Abu Ahmed who had direct access to Bin Laden. Finding Abu Ahmed in Pakistan is like looking for a needle in a haystack. But look Maya does, every spare moment, for a decade. Even though she's an analyst, not a field agent, the mere presence of an American woman in Pakistan puts her in danger. She survives an assassination attempt by Islamist gunmen. Some of her friends aren't so lucky.
As I said earlier, don't expect this movie to be like most spy stories where enemy agents give themselves away and intricate conspiracies unravel before the hero's brilliance. Maya and her colleagues must sift through thousands of hours of interrogations and millions of "facts" to find just the ones that are true and relevant. It's no easy task. Just getting Abu Ahmed's real name takes years of painstaking research. Meanwhile, more attacks take place inside Pakistan, Afghanistan and Europe. Actual news footage of those events serves to show the passage of years. Once Abu Ahmed's name becomes known, there's still the matter of finding him in areas of Pakistan where American's are likely to be shot on sight. Kathryn Bigelow does a masterful job of showing the long hours and hard work behind the search. After 2 hours watching the un-glamorized process of intelligence gathering, the actual SEAL Team 6 takedown of Bin Laden could have been just an afterthought. But Bigelow's documentary-esque style gives the commando sequences an added authority.
"I'm going to put you in that box, let me be honest, that box sucks, you don't want to go in that box."
There's been some hubbub claiming that the movie is pro torture. I'd just like to point out that director Kathryn Bigelow is hardly a Joel Surnow (24) or John Milius (Red Dawn, Dirty Harry). She a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute and Columbia University who personally studied under liberal icons Susan Sontag and Milos Forman (Hair, People vs. Larry Flint, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest). Much of her work before the Hurt Locker was decidedly feminist. She hardly fits the profile of someone out to promote torture. But she had done thousands of hours of research for a film project on the Battle of Tora Bora. When word of Bin Laden's death became public, she shelved her completed screenplay for that movie and started on Zero Dark Thirty. The hours she spent researching Bin Laden, the CIA, Pakistan and Afghanistan for the unmade movie situated her ideally for telling the story of the CIA's hunt for Bin Laden. Add to that the unprecedented access to information she got from the Obama Administration. So much of the information comes from the "highest sources." It's also confirmed by much of the written record including exhaustive work done by journalist Mark Bowden (The Finish: the Killing of Osama Bin Laden).
Because of the controversy, I doubt that Zero Dark Thirty will sweep the Oscars. It may not be an easy movie for some people to watch. But it is a riveting, true-to-life, account of a piece of American history that deserves to be told. And director Kathryn Bigelow did a masterful job telling it. I have read and heard so much about this movie in the last 3-4 months, including that fantastic trailer, that I literally couldn't wait to see it for myself. I saw it this past weekend here in Cincinnati.
"Zero Dark Thirty" (2012 release; 157 min.) brings the story of "the greatest man hunt in American history". As the movie opens we hear (but don't see) voices in distress as 9/11 is happening. The movie then moves to 2003, to a CIA "black site", where we get the first of a number of "enhanced interrogation scenes", including the infamous waterboarding techniques. We get to know Maya (played by Jessica Chastain), a young CIA operative who is tasked with trying to find Bin Laden. The years come and go, with very little progress. Then finally comes a breakthrough. Even though you know how it all ends, I don't want to give further plot details as it really woudl ruin your viewing experience.
Several comments: the last hour and 10 min. of the movie is nothing short of riveting, truly the best movie-viewing you can get, but I felt that the first hour and a half were a bit excessive in length, and had that been edited tighter, it would've made for even a better movie. The "enhanced interrogations" scenes have proven to be quite controversial for many, but I thought it was an eye-opener to see what 'waterboarding' actually is. That aside, I am really glad that the movie makers have kept the politics out of the movie, and strictly focus on the nitty-gritty details of the hunt for Bin Laden. Last but not least, the real heroes of the movie are of course the Navy SEALs who come in at the end and take care of business, seemingly without as much as breaking a sweat. We owe these guys a ton of gratitude! Bottom line: even though it's a bit long for its own good, "Zero Dark Thirty" is a MUST-SEE movie, period.
Read Best Reviews of Zero Dark Thirty Here
The memories will haunt us forever. The horrible, gut-wrenching 9-1-1 calls made by trapped victims in the World Trade Center after the planes crashed into them but before the buildings crumbled to the ground. We have forced the recollection to the back of our minds, to the fringe of our consciousness, but they are always there. For nearly all Americans, there is no memory more vivid, no moment more easily recalled, than that fateful September morning.And that is how Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow's gritty and straightforward account of the CIA's hunt for Osama Bin Laden, begins with the audio of those victims' calls as they vainly waited for help as the building around them burned. The opening jars viewers, unsettling them. It also immediately establishes an emotional connection with the film to the audience .
The movie then fast forwards two years, to an undisclosed CIA black site somewhere in the Middle East, where detainees are being interrogated. This is where we meet Maya (played superbly by Jessica Chastain), a new CIA agent whom Washington has deemed "a killer". At first, Maya timidly joins the enhanced interrogations, mostly watching and taking a backseat as the more grizzled, veteran agent Dan (Jason Clarke).
We watch as Dan and Maya discuss strategy on how best to break the detainees and glean valuable intelligence from them. Many tactics are used. Loud metal is played in the detainee's squalid quarters all night long. Prisoners are stripped naked and walked on a leash. They are forced into a small box. Waterboarding is used as prisoners are hooded and gallons of water poured over their face. Other times detainees are rewarded with nice dinners. It is a harsh reality, one that Bigelow looks at unflinchingly, if a bit dramatically.
Bit by painstaking bit, Maya and Dan slowly extract information from a variety of sources. While this goes on, the years pass. More terrorist acts occur, some depicted with news coverage from the actual events. Often, its two steps forward and one step back, as dead end leads are followed to no avail. Dan leaves his foreign post to take a desk job back in Washington. Fellow CIA agents are killed by suicide bombers. A machine gun wielding terrorist attacks Maya as she leaves her protected residential compound in Pakistan one morning for work. Maya soldiers on.
Maya's work is largely unrewarding but years of determined, dogged persistence eventually pay off, leading the audience to the now infamous small white compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan where Osama Bin Laden lived in obscurity.
When Maya identifies the compound where she believes Bin Laden is hiding, much ado is made of the CIA brass deciding whether or not to proceed with action. While this provides the film with tension and drama, it also painted the intelligence community as reticent, afraid to take action lest it failed in the public's eye.
After spending two hours with Maya, the film leaves her behind for most of the last half hour, as the viewer follows SEAL Team Six in the raid that ended with Bin Laden's killing. This conclusion to the movie is nothing less than riveting. From the ride on the stealth helicopters to the storming of the residence, everything depicted seemed refreshingly realistic, unlike too many other Hollywood action sequences that feature superhuman stunts and horrible combat tactics. While I am sure artistic license was taken, nothing was apparently out of place.
Jessica Chastain's performance as Maya is remarkable. We see her transform from an almost timorous rookie into a hard-nosed, jaded veteran agent by the end of the film. Don't expect to see where she came from or learn her back story. The movie is as focused as Maya. This approach works, however, because, as I noted earlier, the audience is already emotionally invested in the movie's outcome.
Bigelow's direction and Boal's screenwriting combined to make another gem. Four years ago, they collaborated together on The Hurt Locker which won the coveted Oscar for Best Picture. That year, they probably didn't deserve it. This year, they did deserve the award but were completely snubbed at the Academy Awards. Personally, I believe Chastain, Bigelow and Boal all deserved Oscars.
Taking the two movies together, however, I am glad Bigelow and Boal are making films about our involvement in the Middle East. Most movie studios refuse to touch the subject with a ten foot pole, preferring to trot out movies with tired villains and plot lines involving Communists, Nazis or ambiguous European arms dealers. How refreshing it is to view movies that are actually relevant to our times!
Of course, the reason the Oscars probably ignored this film (besides an unglamorous tie in sound editing) is because of the inherent political controversies embedded in a story like this. Some are miffed the enhanced interrogation techniques (e.g. waterboarding) weren't shown with medical personnel present, as allegedly all interrogations involving such measures had. Others are upset that the techniques were shown to net positive information for the CIA.
I thought the scenes involving these techniques were shown for what they were: Harsh measures that were probably necessary for the occasion. Bigelow did not seem to pass judgment on the interrogation methods either way. She did her best to show them as straightforwardly as possible and let the viewers come to their own conclusions. I believe this was the best possible approach for her to take.
All in all, this is an excellent movie deserving of your thought and attention. It is not light popcorn fare, though that doesn't mean it fails to entertain. It is intimate as it traces Maya's personal story and historic and sweeping in the plot's climax. It's a harsh, realistic story, one that Bigelow honestly tells. Dark, subtle, intimate, epic, magnificent.
Want Zero Dark Thirty Discount?
No doubt that the torture scenes in the 45 minutes into the movie will stir up some feelings of consternation. Overall, this film was a condensed depiction of events that took place after 9/11 that led to its closure in the killing of OBL. The majority of the movie and events were true but some of the details were perhaps improvised to add drama and interest to the film. The acting and cinematography were superb. I still say Jessica Chastain should have won an Oscar. Her performance in Maya from going green during the interrogations to someone who was the complete OBL expert and hero was excellent.Nevertheless, it's hard for many people to separate the controversy in this movie. Though I believe the torture scenes used were useless to acquire information. So if the viewer knows this, the film will be more satisfying to watch. All this leading up to the ultimate climax make this movie one my favorites of all time. A very powerful movie that is a MUST WATCH.
Save 44% off
0 comments:
Post a Comment