Zero Dark Thirty

Plot:  Dan (Jason Clarke)  and Maya (Jessica Chastain) are CIA analysts assigned to catching Ussama bin Laden in Pakistan. Early on, they are questioning and torturing prisoners. Later Maya begins to track a courier for bin Laden, Abu Ahmed. This takes years, but eventually she goes to Washington to convince higher-ups to make a military attack. The movie concludes with action scenes of the raid and bin Laden's death. 

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Review: Zero Dark Thirty is a gritty movie about messy, dirty, ugly parts of counter-terrorism. One of the ugliest parts is the torture of al Qaida prisoners, which takes up the first third of the movie. In the middle, Jessica Chastain gets tough to jump start the hunt bin Laden. She has a few powerful scenes that seemed realistic. The final raid is suspenseful and fast-paced.

The best part is the documentary value of learning about the search and the raid. Now, this is a Hollywood movie, and I know director Bigelow was going for suspense, drama, and reasonable running time, and that therefore many details are inaccurate.  The worst part is that it is not that fun to watch.

After I left the theater, I kept thinking about the morality of the torture and the midnight raid. Did so many people need to die in the early morning raid on the bin Laden compound? It seemed like one woman was killed accidentally. Given that no one was sure who lived there, why was there such a strong bias toward killing the occupants?

As a film, the photography was OK, and the soundtrack was not memorable. The helicopter assault scenes were good. 

Cast: Jessica Chastain, Joel Edgerton, Chris Pratt 

Directed by: Kathryn Bigelow

Rating: 3.0 stars: educational, thought provoking, not fun

More: .I continue to wonder how accurate Zero Dark Thirty was. I think it is an artist's impression of the facts with a bias to making the story dramatic.  It makes me want to read a book on it. 

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