Zero Dark Thirty has had an interesting history. It's production started several years ago. The film's intent was to be a take no prisoners depiction of the hunt for Osama Bin Laden. All the hardship and all the bureaucratic derailings. It was originally going to end on a neutral, even downbeat note. Then May 2nd 2011 happened. Since the project had not yet entirely been wrapped up, it now got to have an ending to the story.
This synopsis will not contain spoilers, that being said I'm pretty sure everyone knows how this movie ends. Zero Dark Thirty follows the ongoing hunt for Osama Bin Laden. The movie starts with the the American Military and intelligence organizations bogged down in the efforts of the war on terror. We follow the men and women whose primary goal is the finding of Bin Laden. Primarily, we follow code name Maya as her real name is obviously not given. We see beat for beat in extremely high detail all the fact gathering, politics and false leads that finally led to the final piece of information that led to the discovery of Bin Laden's whereabouts, and the subsequent raid that ensued.
On the technical end of things, this film comes to us by award winning director of The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow. There is very little wrong with this movie in terms of cinematography. For the most part, it's flat out brilliant, only stumbling once or twice to needless shaky cam. The setting is flawless and the acting is some of the best seen in this new decade, especially from Jessica Chastain's Maya. This woman needs an Oscar. for this role. The sound work is flawless, the effects are perfect and this movie finally shows us that realistic military tactics can be just as heart stopping to watch as any overblown action movie.
I have nothing bad to say about this one. Everything about it is nigh perfect. I mean of course there was going to be a movie about this event but who would have guessed it would have turned out so well? What should be boring scenes are enticing to watch. What should be a long sit feels like a breeze. Now this movie is subject to some controversy as it depicts intelligence vital to the operation as gathered from torture. The problem is that according to several, that info was not garnered that way, and that depicting it as such sends a "torture is okay" message. My personal opinion is that the film shows it's view of what happened and it does so in a very neutral way. As if to say "here's what happened, now go talk among yourselves." A movie pulling off that feeling is incredibly hard to do and here it worked. To me, it did not detract from the movie as a whole. Even with those scenes, this thing is still brilliant.
All in all, I will defend this movie from the naysayers. Whatever really did happen, a movie should be judged as a movie and this won deserves whatever Oscar gold it gets.
Go see it if your interested in the subject or appreciate well made movies.
Rent it if your curious but don't really have any strong feelings on the subject.
Skip it if you think the controversy is something that would detract from the movie for you.
Next time will be funnier i promise, and hey we can even do another Jessica Chastain movie.
Thank you for not spoiling the films you are going to write about. keep up the prolific blogging. What no Jesse Nadeau original rating system? :)
ReplyDeleteI don't really like rating movies. I don't think that enjoyment of a work of entertainment can be quantified by a number. Plus I really don't like the out of ten system as nothing humanity has ever made is a 10 or a 0. Nothing is perfect and nothing is worthless. I like the Go Rent and Skip system.
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