There's scene late in this movie 'Zero Dark
Thirty' where our heroine Maya (Jessica Chastain) is surprised
at lunch by the CIA Director (James Gandolfini) where she
tells the director that she was primed right out of high
school for entry into the CIA. I gotta admit I was a
little jealous when I heard that. I mean why didn't the
CIA prime me out of high school? Admittedly my grades
weren't all that high and my standardized test scores hovered
around the 8th percentile, and my attention to detail is
pretty poor and I do get bored real easy, but… and this is
important… I look real good in a suit. If that's not spy
material I don't know what is. And I don't think I'd
have too much of a problem torturing people. Uh… I mean
interrogating them via our detainee program. Regardless
of all of that nonsense, you know we found Osama Bin Laden,
'Zero Dark Thirty' tells the story of how we got there.
The second the Twin Towers fell, the United States Government
began the long, arduous and seemingly futile process of
searching for Osama Bin Laden. We join in the fray a
couple years later with young field agent Maya as she has
entered Afghanistan, and one of the very first things she is
privileged to see is Agent Dan (Jason Clarke) torturing some
dude. Don't like watching people get tortured?
Watch another movie. 'Zero Dark Thirty' is like a
respectable version of 'Saw'.
So we hang out with Maya as she takes us into the back rooms
of what she and her fellow agents are trying to do, sifting
through loads of information mostly brought about via shaky
intel, grainy spy photos, janky politics and information
acquired through torture which can never be completely
trusted. While these hardworking people seem to be doing
the they best can, particularly Maya who is becoming
borderline obsessive about finding Bin Laden, to hear their
boss George (Mark Strong) tell it, they are doing an awful
job. It is hard to argue with the man considering
that the years are going by, the terror attacks are increasing
across the globe, and Osama Bin Laden and most of his high
ranking officials are still alive causing destruction.
Then a couple of things happen to young Maya,
one being she believes she has found the identity of Osama Bin
Laden's main courier which she, and only she believes will
lead them directly to Bin Laden, and she also suffers a
personal tragedy, the blame of which she lays directly at the
feet of Osama Bin Laden. So where Maya might've been
borderline obsessive before, she's now certifiably maniacally
obsessive.
Maya might be about 5'4" and weigh 110lbs, but stay out of her
way because she will run over you, go over your head, threaten
you, bully you, browbeat you and curse you all to get to what
she feels is the ultimate justice. Eventually, thanks to
the work of this mythical character, Osama Bin Laden will be
found which will lead to, arguably, the best twenty five or
thirty minutes of cinema you will ever want to see.
At the moment Kathryn Bigelow's 'Zero Dark Thirty' is
garnering universal acclaim, similar to her previous film 'The
Hurt Locker' though both films are very different aside from
the fact they are both centered around the art of war.
'The Hurt Locker' was a character study, but this one… not so
much. True enough Jessica Chastain's character of Maya
dominates this movie, in fact her stellar performance almost
overpowers this film with her raw dog grit and determination
to finish her job, but the narrative doesn't give the audience
much in the way of letting us know what drives her, or letting
us on the inside of who this woman might be. This isn't
necessarily a problem because 'Zero Dark Thirty' isn't really
that kind of movie, but I do think a little insight into what
drives Maya, outside of the fact that the job needs to be done
and Osama Bin Laden needs to be dead, wouldn't have hurt.
That aside what we do have with 'Zero Dark Thirty' is a tight,
gripping thriller which effectively and meticulously takes us
through the process that went into the tracking and eventual
elimination of Osama Bin Laden. It takes a minute to get
accustomed to the language and methods that we are being shown
as this isn't a primer on terrorist hunting and director
Bigelow certainly isn't interested in easing us into the
proceedings, but once you get accustomed to the style it does
become absorbing. For the most part. 'Zero Dark
Thirty' does run just south of three hours and there are
moments when it does feel as if it is getting a little caught
up in the minutiae of it all… particularly a nice stretch from
the moment Bin Laden's hideout is suspected to have been found
leading to the eventual raid. I imagine this was
designed to build tension in addition to highlighting the slow
movement of the government machine, but for me it resulted in
impatience and frustration. Which was what Maya was
obviously feeling as well, so maybe that was the desired
effect.
Then, of course, there's the eventual raid which was about as
well shot, well choreographed and as well executed as a
cinematic sequence can get, if you were to ask me. And
since you're reading this you are asking me, right? It
does put you there, it pulls no punches, it is somewhat
disturbing and in some sense even sad.
'Zero Dark Thirty' is difficult to watch at times, but it is a
drum tight, brutally efficient piece of cinema and a marvel of
achievement for director Kathryn Bigelow.
