Zero Dark Thirty: A Review

Zero Dark Thirty

A Review

Masters of a genre..

Following The Hurt Locker's huge critical success in 2008, the Kathryn Bigalow/Mark Boal team have truly outdone themselves with Zero Dark Thirty. The director/writer pair have undoubtedly mastered this genre of film making, making their newest film deliver on all of your hopes and expectations, and then more.

I have been waiting for Zero Dark Thirty since first hearing about it. Then, since its release in the US in December, excitement and real anticipation has been brewing deep inside me. I went into the cinema with massive expectations (one of my great downfalls when it comes to enjoying a movie), but Zero Dark Thirty didn't come close to popping my excitement bubble.

[spoilers ahead]

The movie was originally the story of the unsuccessful decade long manhunt for Osama Bin Laden, but had to be re-written when the real-life capture of the terrorist mastermind had been captured and killed. The original story was shelved, and a new script was written from scratch.

The iteration that we see on the screen follows the decade-long story of Maya (Jessica Chastain), a fresh CIA agent recruited out of high school, as she pursues the head of Al Qaeda after the events of September 11, 2001. Maya is taken under Dan's wing (Jason Clark) at a black site in the Middle East, and quickly grows to be a veteran officer. Her experience in the field tells her to trust her gut instinct on certain clues and leads that ultimately lead her and the CIA to find Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. After months of heavy surveillance and Maya's certainty that Bin Laden is hiding inside, the President gives the go-ahead for a US Navy SEAL team to raid the compound, ultimately leading to the killing of Osama Bin Laden.

When you lie to me, I hurt you.

Zero Dark Thirty opens on a black screen. Sounds slowly filter in - distress calls from the Twin Tower attacks on September 11, 2001. The black screen forces you to listen and relive the terror of that day, an effect that would not be accomplished if the harrowing sounds were played over a video reel. This sets the tone for the rest of the movie, leaving you feeling on edge and with a yearning for justice, instead of revenge.

Now this movie has the unfortunate label of "the torture movie", and while there are very disturbing and convincingly acted torture scenes, the movie as a whole does not deserve this name. The way the film shows torture is not glorified and is not overdone, and therefore it doesn't deserve it's nickname. The US Government calls it "enhanced interrogation techniques", and insists that it didn't happen during the events shown in the movie. While this may or may not be true, the film obviously wants to dramatise some things. It's a movie! It's almost compulsory to have these scenes shown, and is done so in an appropriate manner.

From what I gather, the movie is very tight with the real events that went down. There has been some controversy about how exactly Mark Boal gained access to the information that may or may not be included in the film. You will notice how "real" it feels, despite not knowing a damned thing about what happened. Everything in the movie is uber-detailed, especially the compound raid scene, which feels extremely tactical and planned out. One thing we do know is that the movie spends around 25 minutes on the compound raid scene, which is just shy of the time it took for the real life event [IMDB].

For the most part, Zero Dark Thirty feels very discouraging. It makes you feel the hopelessness experienced by the characters on screen. Al Qaeda keeps bombing and bombing and taking and taking, and Maya and her team are barely breaking any new ground to prevent the attacks. You are forced into this sense of desperation. Couple that with the way the film creates suspense, and it becomes truly gripping. You continually shift your expectations, thinking "something" is coming (a car bombing, another terrorist attack, sudden gunfire), only to have nothing happen. This uncertainty lingers throughout the entirety of the film, and thrusts you into their world.

I'm the mother****** that found this place.

Jessica Chastain can turn anything into gold. She's a massive star right now, and delivers her most stunning performance yet in Zero Dark Thirty. She has used her background as the quintessential mother figure to bring a softness to her character Maya, but is still so single-minded and driven. The scene that truly shows this is shown below:

Chastain's performance is spectacular throughout the entire movie. Not once did it feel like something she's done before, nor did it ever feel like Claire Danes' performance in Homeland, which both surprised and relieved me. 

Chastain is completely believable right up until the end, and her performance at the end of the film concretes her new found stardom. The scene I refer to is the very last one, where the movie's conclusion can be interpreted in a number of ways. However I think it can be agreed that the end scene is a real "What now?" moment for Maya, Chastain's character. An emotional Maya is sitting alone on a plane, and the pilot asks her where she wants to go, to which he receives no reply. Maya is lost - she's just spent twelve years hunting for the man who took so many lives, only to have him killed so unceremoniously. After so long dedicating her life to this, she doesn't know where to go, or what to do with her life.

You can help yourself by being truthful.

The only criticism I have for this film is Chris Pratt, from Parks and Recreation. I heavily associate him with the comedy scene, and when he popped up as a member of the SEAL team that takes down Bin Laden it made me think, "Ok, this could work", but then he spoke. He's doing the same thing he does in everything he does, and removed me from the reality the movie propelled me into.

Despite that one complaint, Zero Dark Thirty is a fantastic watch. It thrusts you into this world and makes you feel uncertain, anxious and thrilled at the same time. Plus seeing this on the big screen really paid off. Whoever pirates this movie is missing out on fifty percent of the experience. Zero Dark Thirty is loud - the force of the automatic weapons, the rumble of car bomb explosions, the chopping of helicopter blades - it is all amplified in the cinema, and truly makes the room around you rumble and vibrate as if you were inside their world, and feels incredibly real. And if you won't watch for the experience, watch for Jessica Chastain. Brilliance.

Zero Dark Thirty: 4.5 out of 5 zero dark 'staches