Movie Review: Zero Dark Thirty

Zero Dark Thirty -  The Hunt for Osama bin Laden.   The movie focus is on a CIA agent played brilliantly  by Jessica Chastain.   The Golden Globe award and Oscar nomination for Chastain are deserved.  The movie tracks the career of Maya (I do not believe we ever hear her last name) from being sent to the Middle East after 9/11 through bin Laden’s killing.   While the movie is not a documentary, many of the events depicted are factually accurate.   An example was the events related to the killing of key CIA people in Afghanistan by a doctor who the agents thought had been turned.   The movie is directed by Kathryn Bigelow, and for the second time she masterfully depicts the US in the Middle East.   Her previous film was Hurt Locker.  Both films were written by Mark Boal, but this film gets caught up in political correctness as Zero leaves the viewer with the impression that torture works, which many dispute, including the FBI people who were involved with the initial interrogation of hostages.  As a film and not addressing the political issue, the movie spends too much time with the torture scenes and at 2 hours 36 minutes, the movie runs long.   Personally, I enjoyed the second half of the movie much more than what seemed like 30 minutes of prison torture related scenes (the real time was less).  Still, given the overall quality of the film, I am truly surprised that neither Bigelow nor Ben Affleck for Argo was nominated for Oscars.  And is Affleck the first person to win a Golden Globe for director and not even receive an Oscar nomination?  I’ve not seen two of the five movies for which directors received nominations (one of the films I don’t believe has even been shown in Honolulu) and therefore I’m reluctant to state anything beyond it being clear that Hollywood is tired of Middle East stories.  But as to Zero, the two halves of the movie have a different feel to them and it may be due to the movie being developed as to the hunt for bin Laden and, while in production, he was found.  This may explain why Bigelow was not nominated.  While my intention when I started to write this commentary was not to discuss the factual accuracy, it is hard to avoid when a movie posts at the start “based on fact” and the reality is different.  It may impact on your reaction to the film.  The US  compound in Abbottabad is a realistic replica of the real place.  What happened as to the killing of bin Laden appears to be real.  But the long focus on a single CIA operative coupled with the misleading implication that torture works is troublesome.  This is not a John Wayne picture of war but except for Maya not being on the kill mission, you may think of her as a female version.  Chastain may be the best young movie actress and this film allows her to show a range of emotions.  There are other good performances.  The short scenes involving James Gandolfini as the CIA director are excellent.  The Navy SEAL guys come across as quite real – Joel Edgerton and Chris Pratt are excellent.  Use of the night vision goggles when storming the bin Laden compound gives a true sense of reality.  This is a movie you should see but remember, this is not a documentary film.