User reviews

It's not an action flick, it's a thriller. About a tough CIA-chick who has a hunch about a guy who might eventually lead them to Osama Bin Laden. It takes her almost 10 years, a little waterboarding, a couple of dead colleagues and a lot of arguing with her superiors, but she manages to follow the lead all the way to the now famous raid in Abbottabad.

It's a very captivating film (even with its 160 minutes runtime), and the big raid at the end is quite intense and realistic. That said, Bigelow's previous 'The Hurt Locker' was (even) better. But it's close!

As for the controversy whether the film is 'pro-torture propaganda' or not: it shows what (likely) happened. A very unpleasant sight for Americans, sure, but that's no reason to leave it out. Whether or not 'OBL' would've been caught without the use of torture is speculation that has no place in this movie (it's a depiction of events, not a moral study).

Some Americans might still find it hard to watch a movie that requires you to form your own opinion about the actions of your country/government/army, instead of getting one spoon fed by those very same institutions. But given the America's options in government- potential it seems a luxury Americans no longer have.

I did not expect to enjoy this as much as I actually did. With its length, complicated nature and incredible detail Zero Dark Thirty was a fantastic piece of work. Jessica Chastain was brilliant in the convincing centre piece of the narrative. It was long, starting strong, losing credit towards the middle but the final hour was terrific. Right down to the raid which was full of suspense and drama. Like the raid itself, it was a precise and scintillating piece of cinema. In the end it felt worth it, I have little interest in the context of its accuracies of the actual events, nor its controversy. In the scheme of things I watched for entertainment, and it delivered. If you're in the mood for something dramatic with a serious tone, watch Zero Dark Thirty.

I'm not claiming that this movie is 100% factual or even close to it but I think the filmmaker did a brilliant job of chronicling the UBL saga. IMO the theme of the movie in a nutshell is this: We got this guy (maybe?) but at what cost and were we justified? These are not easy questions to answer and they are left open ended for the most part.

The three main criticisms I've come across in the reviews is that 1) The movie is propaganda 2) It glorifies torture and 3) It is factually inaccurate. The third is probably a legitimate criticism but the movie really makes no pretenses about being a documentary and there is a prominent disclaimer at the beginning that it is based primarily on eye-witness accounts (and it is common knowledge that those can be unreliable). Regarding the death of UBL - well the movie even leaves that open ended which is pretty consistent with the actual reported events. We only get brief blurred glimpses of the side of his face and the only definitive identification comes from the 'expert' protagonist who is clearly somewhat derailed and obsessed with the manhunt (and who also stated UBL was at that location with 100% certainty).

That leads in to the first criticism. I fail to understand how this movie can be perceived as propaganda. How does portraying a 10 year ordeal culminating in an unglamorous methodical execution style raid (in which a helicopter crashes and SEALS kill possibly innocent bystanders with machine like precision) where the target's identity is not a even a certainty even remotely constitute a biased pro American agenda? Not to mention that the whole raid is brought about by a hunch and a fluke stroke of luck and not any actual key pieces of information obtained through interrogation (other than a name). If anything luck was the deciding factor in taking down UBL - not American awesomeness.

Now the torture - How does showing torture equate to glorifying torture? Does Braveheart glorify torture too? Again - this had the opposite effect on me. The viewer is forced to confront the unpleasant reality that we tortured many detainees (probably pointlessly) in our desperation to capture UBL and bring him to justice. What was the primary motivation? Revenge? Safety? Do the ends justify the means? Essentially that's the exact question the filmmaker is posing to the viewer by exposing the torture to public scrutiny.

Perhaps this movie just rubs people the wrong way because they find it too sympathetic to government officials. It's easy to criticize to the Government and trust me I am far from an optimist when it comes to American politicians so I do it often. Obviously our leaders were faced with some difficult decisions after 9/11. Did we handle things the best way? Certainly not, but for better or worse this thing played out the way it did and we have to deal with it and move forward.

I wasn't sure how I would feel about such a long film based on recent events, and thus a recent film. I tend to stick to older films. But this was a fantastic thriller. I think it tends to get mixed reviews because it doesn't take a position on torture of the detainees that it portrayed. But nothing would have put me to sleep faster than a bunch of moralizing about what went on. Instead, this captured my attention and didn't let go for the almost three hour running time, although I know how it turned out in the end. Everybody does.

It has a semi-documentary feel and tracks the hunt for terrorist Bin Ladin over a ten year period through two very different administrations - Bush then Obama - and the changing politics and thus rules of engagement of the era. The protagonist - if there is one - CIA agent Maya doesn't want this assignment initially. She is asked how she likes Pakistan. She indicates she doesn't like the place. She seems somewhat queasy when she first witnesses a detainee being water boarded. But if she has a problem with any of this she never voices it past this scene.

My impression was that the function of the torture is to illustrate a point that director Bigelow and the film is trying to make in regards to modern warfare and what a "war on terror" is in the 21st century. In many ways the film is like a companion piece to Fincher's Zodiac in its serialized examination of trying to catch a villain through information and mis-information. Both films aren't so much about the villains as much as they are meditations on information and obsession; they seem to be concerned with what happens when you have too much information, how one differentiates good information from bad information, and what the morality is of seeking information.

Modern warfare and the war on terror is a war on information. What are the first things the SEALs grab when the kill-shot is fired? Hard drives and files. Characters in both films can't seem to see beyond what it is they're trying to obtain and they're willing to ruin their lives, and others, to obtain it.

These characters are obsessed and have tunnel vision They see only their goal. (I think of that scene where Maya watches a drone strike occur on a monitor as she's nonchalantly on the phone with someone.) I don't feel like any story arc was needed for Maya, all I want are the facts, so I don't feel cheated in that sense. I think Bigelow made the right decision by just putting her in there and not giving us much. It's not about her, it's about the hunt for Bin Laden and how it went down. Why she put in the final shot though I don't know.

If you are looking for a good thriller based on factual events, this is terrific edge of your seat entertainment.

"Zero Dark Thirty" is a grim, clinical depiction of the CIA search for Osama bin Laden. Its strongest feature is its dramatization of the Navy Seal Team 6 operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed bin Laden. That sequence is so professionally shot it could be actual documentary footage.

"Zero" has no real plot. Episodic scenes occur in a choppy manner, one after the other. Scenes consist of depictions of beating and water boarding of detainees in order to gather information, agents stalking a suspect in Pakistan's crowded, chaotic bazaars, terrorist bombings, assassinations and assassination attempts. There are also scenes in offices where characters stare intently at computer screens or interrogation videos, and characters yell at each other and use obscenities, as their frustrating hunt for Osama bin Laden wears them down.

"Zero" makes no attempt to draw the viewer in with any human sentiment. Characters are given no backstory and no character arch. CIA agent Maya, played by Jessica Chastain, is the closest the film has to a main character. She reveals no affect. Her face is blank. She isn't so much robotic as inert. We know nothing about her, except that she was recruited to the CIA while in high school – we are never told what would draw the CIA to a high school student. I didn't care about this character at all. All I kept thinking was, "Jessica Chastain is being praised for *this* performance? Why?" The dullness of her performance, and the underwritten character, made it almost impossible for me to lose myself in the story, such as it was.

Jason Clarke is very strong and charismatic as Dan, a CIA interrogator. Dan humiliates, beats, and water boards suspects, and then feeds them delicious meals of hummus and olives when they deliver. His depiction of his work as just another job – he could be playing a bus driver with the same amount and degree of expressiveness – is provocative. I wish I had gone to see a film built around his character and his performance.

Overall, I was disappointed in the film. Feature films are an art form. I want them to do to me what drama can do. I want to be made to identify with a character and I want, through that identification, to learn more about life, or I want to be entertained. "Zero" did neither for me. I wasn't entertained, and my understanding and worldview were not expanded. I think the same material could have been better treated in a documentary with selective re-enactments.

"Zero Dark Thirty" sidesteps key questions. Maya sacrificed years of her life to the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Dan risks his humanity by making his living beating and humiliating other men. Men, women and children throughout the Muslim world, and, as the film makes clear, in America's and Europe's cities, are eager to blow themselves up, as long as they can take some infidels with them. Why? The film doesn't even acknowledge that there are people out there asking the question, never mind attempting to suggest an answer.

The film opens with audio from the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, suggesting that the war between Islam and the non-Muslim world dates from that attack. Not so. Islam increased its territory through jihad from its invention in the seventh century until September 11, 1683, at the Battle of Vienna. After that defeat, Islam stopped its spread. The significance of the date of September 11 goes back over four centuries.

America's founding fathers had to deal with jihad; see Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates. Some argue terrorism, including the 9-11 attack, is caused by Western imperialism. The solution to these thinkers is for the Western world to be nicer to non-Western nations, to practice multiculturalism and to share the wealth. Others argue that jihad is inextricable from Islam, and that one necessary step is for the West to recognize and cherish its own unique virtues – to cherish that for which its spies, soldiers, and citizens fight, sacrifice, kill and die.

"Zero Dark Thirty" never so much as brushes up against these questions. At its key moment, the film is hollow. We all know how the hunt ends – we all know Osama bin Laden is dead. "Zero" might have addressed why Maya gave the time of her life to that hunt, why Dan risked his humanity, why Seal Team 6 trained for years and risked their lives. "Zero" never does consider why these, who might have been the film's heroes, did what they did, and I walked out of the theater oddly unmoved by all the high tension and graphic violence I'd just sat through.

Maya (Jessica Chastain) is a CIA analyst who won't rest from the hunt fro Bin Laden. Director Kathryn Bigelow has followed the hunt from 9-11 to the tension filled raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The movie is based on the true events. There is a relevant question of how true to the events is the movie. Unlike most movies, this is actually an important question.

Most of us have no hope of knowing the true facts that actually happened. This movie is certainly a possible reality. Some of it is probably wrong. They've probably changed some of it to not reveal CIA trade craft. Others looks different than what's been reported on the news. However it is overall following the story already laid out for the public.

The hunt for Bin Laden can meander and not follow a straight line. It doesn't really built like a normal movie. Bigelow is still able to maintain the tension throughout the movie. The last 40 minutes is where this movie truly excels. The raid in Abbottabad is incredibly tense. The Hollywood flashiness is mostly removed. It takes its time. It's done almost in real time. It has the intensity of realism. It's shocking how real the raid looked.

Zero Dark Thirty is a procedural CIA-based thriller in the mould of TV's Homeland. This film, however, is based on real-life events, so it doesn't have the benefit of being able to withhold in the way Homeland's first series did with Twin Peaks-like delectation. What Zero Dark Thirty does have is a narrative based on first-hand accounts, and it makes no explicit judgement about the content of those accounts. We simply get to see what (apparently) happened during the manhunt for "UBJ".

The film's lack of polemic is both a blessing a curse. It's a blessing because it's rare that a film dealing with such volatile subject matter is depicted procedurally. Usually when a narrative is made ostensibly apolitical it's as a result of an unconvincing moral rebalancing, where the filmmakers go to great lengths to present both sides fairly. But Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow's disinterest is also a curse because, in avoiding judgement, it surreptitiously falls firmly on the side of the CIA. It shows what it's allowed to show, but keeps their secrets ("undisclosed location" and all that); and it portrays the operatives as the honourable front-liners getting their hands dirty (but not bloody), beyond moral reproach by virtue of hard graft. In Bigelow's world, it's the suits in Washington who have the blood in their hands - they're disconnected, as evidenced when torture-specialist Dan (Jason Clarke) returns to US headquarters from the field and loses his nerve, becoming a man of soft probabilities.

Clarke is solid but lost amidst superior talent, as he was in John Hillcoat's recent Lawless. Jessica Chastain delivers a nuanced performance. Driven professionals in films often come across as stolid, but Chastain is an actor of subtlety - even if Bigelow can't help lensing her like a wind-swept movie star in the Middle Eastern magic light. Jennifer Ehle uses her moon-faced radiance to good effect, filling her eager operative Jessica with youthful energy. There's a fair amount of distracting spot-the-cameo going on, particularly toward the end, when Joel Edgerton, Mark Duplass and James Gandolfini turn up.

Bigelow's directorial talent is never in doubt. The final sequence in particular is harrowingly tense, even though we know the outcome. And she generally gets the best out of actors. But make no mistake: this is a deeply patriotic film which is cheering for the home team, and it does so under the guise of objectivity, which makes it more manipulative than flag-waving fare like Last Ounce of Courage or Act of Valor, albeit much more skilfully made.

I've lived in the Muslim world for years and in Pakistan for a few months. Now some friends came to stay and the one place they decided they HAD to see was the empty plot of land where once stood Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad. Three hours to go, three hours back, some pictures and a story to tell (the movie says the city is 45 minutes drive from Islamabad, but that was back in 2010 - not now!).

Once we came back we were so involved with the story of the raid that we had to see Zero Dark Thirty (for the 2nd time for me, 1st for them). The killing of UBL is meticulously reconstructed, but only covers the last 30 minutes of the movie. Most of the story involves a CIA semi-fictional agent who by sheer determination and luck convinces the Agency that Bin Laden can be reached, and that they have a good idea of what men is the key to his whereabouts: Ibrahim Sayed, AKA Abu Ahmed Al-Kuwaiti. Information from detainees suggests Sayed is UBL's courier. Our hero figures that, wherever in Central Asia UBL is, the one thing he is sure to have is a courier. Track him, you get the big Kahuna.

The Agency is initially unlucky to believe erroneous intelligence saying Sayed is dead. And then they are lucky to find out he is not dead. With a lot of push from our hero, they allot the resources to find him. It is no easy task. That's my favorite part of the movie. Surveillance technology can find out from where he is calling his family (busy districts in the Punjab), but it is a lot more tricky to follow him in the middle of the crowd to the place where he lives.

After tracking Sayed to a VERY suspicious compound in a city the CIA never expected Bin Laden to be, it is time to decide if this is really UBL's residence. But the mysterious inhabitant never shows his face. I don't think he was hiding from CIA cameras, he just knows he is so recognizable. So the decision is left to the higher-ups, to bomb the place, raid it, or just keep waiting for more definitive intel.

And that is the part where the Director has to make a dramatic decision. Does she show the President and his top aides deliberating? I think putting Obama, Clinton and Biden in the movie would suck all the air out of the room to the detriment of the focus on the field agents. Leon Panneta shows up, but he is not even named. The final act wrote itself, because it is a documentary-like recreation of the raid.

Some reviewers pointed glaring mistakes: the Pakistanis seem to be speaking Arabic instead of Urdu. One part I had to laugh was when a mob stood outside the American Embassy in Islamabad. If you have been there, or anywhere in the diplomatic compound, you know it would never happen.

It is hard to make suspenseful a story that unfolds throughout 10 years and involves meticulous collection of intelligence and a lot of false starts. So the movie may feel like a "boring procedural" for people who are expecting normal Hollywood fare. In order to add a personal touch to the main character, she has a fried killed in a highly implausible scene. Otherwise, Maya just remains a stock character you have to fill in the gaps: lonely woman married to her job, always having to prove herself, obsessed with a task her superiors don't want to give priority.

Some people pointed out to a big lie of the movie: that torture gave crucial information. I'd point out that it is just a half-lie. Yes, nobody gave useful intel for the killing of UBL under torture. However, keeping terror suspects for years under dubious legal status (say with me - Guantanamo!) paid dividends.

This (slightly) fictionalized dramatization of the decade-long hunt for Osama Bin Laden is often difficult to watch, for a variety of reasons, but that doesn't mean it isn't any good. It's just not your typically polished, glistening Hollywood rendition, and that takes a bit of getting used to. Flubbed lines are left in the final cut, which serves to humanize the cast. Quiet, unsuspecting character moments are unforgettably interrupted by sudden explosions of violence - effectively mimicking (or so I have to imagine) the bloodrush of a real-world terrorist assault. The methods of torture employed in America's hunt for Al-Qaeda's leader are brazenly featured, as are the mixed spoils of their occasional success. The first act points a firehose of information at the audience, leaving them just as overwhelmed and buried by minutiae as the lead. Jessica Chastain is fiery and confident in that role, essential traits for the complicated character she occupies, but the rest of the supporting cast fades into the wallpaper when she's around. The actual onslaught on Bin-Laden's compound, which eats up the last hour of the film, is the smoothest and most accessible scene by a longshot, remaining factual and vividly lifelike while also ratcheting up the pacing and the tension. As a whole, though, the film is well-acted and effective, but often slow and over-inflated. Though it paints just one side of the story, it refrains from drawing any final conclusions and instead leaves the viewer to deal with the validity of America's motives and methods.

Darkness. A blank screen echoes the desperate screams and howls of innocent civilians telephoning their loved ones before the World Trade Centre crumbled over them. 2,977 fatalities. Over 25,000 injuries. "9/11", at the hands of Islamic fundamentalist group al-Qaeda, became the "deadliest terrorist attack in human history". The Bush administration swiftly launching the "War on Terror" to depose the Taliban, after the proposed extradition of leader Osama bin Laden floundered. Future terrorist attacks were imminent, with the CIA employing controversial systematic torture programs known as "enhanced interrogation techniques" to extract information from detainees in undisclosed black sites. Maya, a fictional CIA analyst tasked in locating bin Laden, soon becomes obsessed with potential lead Abu Ahmed that rapidly sends her down a monomaniacal path of danger, with growing pressure to save thousands of lives in the process.

Bigelow's thrilling decade-long depiction of events, in what is claimed as the "greatest manhunt in history", can only be described as uncompromising scintillating cinema at its most raw. The extremist behaviour of Islamic Group members have been widely reported, detailed and sensationalised by the media for countless years. "7/7" bombings in London. The Camp Chapman attack. The 2008 Mumbai attacks. All co-ordinated actions that drew widespread condemnation. However, dramatising these profound events to stir further hatred for extremist behaviour and imply celebratory national patriotism, are not functionalities for Boal's succinct screenplay. Both Bigelow and Boal, whom collaborated on 'The Hurt Locker', utilise modern history to insight political critique upon the questionable actions of the Bush administration and malevolence of al-Qaeda.

A proliferate narrative neutrality that produced an unyielding barrier of risk, querying the legitimacy of bin Laden's assassination and the gruelling process leading up to that pivotal raid. In the process, supplying sensitive philosophers and cowardly politicians with enough controversial ammunition to fire allegations from every direction. Supposed partisanship with the Obama administration, improper access to classified documents and pro-torture portrayal (more on that later...). These assertions are just that. Allegations. Because Zero Dark Thirty is a stark reminder of how ambivalent America's contribution to this war was, and that undoubtedly irked "experts" and officials.

Putting aside the historical politics for one moment, the essence of Bigelow's intellectual assertion comes in the form of Maya. A lone female operative shrouded in the masculinity of warfare. Her tenacity and tough-minded persona undeniably receives the most acute character development arcs ever written, acting as an independent pressured employee expending her entire career in chasing bin Laden and a conduit for the narrative's neutrality. Her initial reserved attitude towards approved "enhanced interrogation" allows viewers to question the permissibility of such authoritative techniques. Then she becomes obsessed, gradually succumbing to the ferocity of her work. Weeks, months, years. A decade passes. The pressure breaking her meticulous persona down, utilising any and all methods in finding bin Laden. Yet Maya combats the systematic ideologies of the CIA consistently to grant her fictionalisation a required neutrality that issues humanity. Chastain's exceptional performance is littered with nuanced emotive details that gingerly bestow a provocative rage. Commanding, intimidating and menial. Chastain fluctuates her power from quaint whispers to enraged shouts, yet never lets her guard down. Until the final scene. A scene that profoundly reflected the morality and ethicality of all the preceding events that happened over the decade-long manhunt. The first and only moment where Maya exerts emotional fragility. A cluster of overwhelming feelings. Relief. Disappointment. Melancholy. Maya is the representation of the entire Iraq war from an emotional standpoint, and her culminating frame of film is perfect.

Bigelow, alongside Fraser's clinically bleak cinematography, explores the dark side of war. Bolstered by a commendable supporting cast whom exude professional urgency to the matter at hand. From the desolate anticipation of the Camp Chapman attack, to the night-vision filtered compound raid of Operation Neptune Spear. Zero Dark Thirty never dissipates its tension and technical astuteness, despite the chapter segregation that does regrettably disjoint the elongated runtime.

Now, the torture interrogations. Waterboarding in particular. Famously generating a mass amount of controversy for its propagandistic nature and pro-torture stance. Makes you wonder why it conjured so much attention in the first place. To add on Bigelow's response, it is a part of history. It shouldn't have been, but it was. Consequently these government approved techniques should not be ignored regardless if it lead to bin Laden's location or not, and it absolutely does question the morality behind such actions. Maya's inclusion complying with that thought-process entirely. It categorically does not normalise torture, nor does its involvement endorse such issues. It simply provides exposure, arguably creating a statement against torture by implying the antagonistic behaviours of CIA agents.

There's a reason why Zero Dark Thirty was marred with controversy. There's a reason why Zero Dark Thirty pursues a neutral narrative. It raises a fundamental question. "Was the death of bin Laden worth the price we paid?". By showing the unspeakable, unflinching and the uncompromising, Bigelow audaciously challenges on an intellectual scale by using modern warfare as her weapon of choice. Producing a near-perfect film in the process.

Maya, a tenacious CIA agent (Jessica Chastain) searches for world's most wanted man: Osama Bin Laden, against the background of terrorist attacks against Western targets. Director Kathryn Bigelow does a masterful job of blending tension and action with the sometimes tedious processes of data analysis and surveillance (the film compresses eight years of searching for the 9-11 mastermind into 160 minutes). Chastain is excellent as the driven analyst and the film wisely wastes no time on her life outside the search (i.e. no gratuitous romance, personal affairs, etc). The rest of the cast is also quite good, especially Jennifer Ehle as Maya's colleague Jessica. The lengthy climatic set-piece, as the special-ops team move in on bin Laden's compound near Abbottabad, Pakistan is outstanding. The film was controversial for its depiction of torture (aka 'enhanced interrogation techniques') as an effective 'necessary evil' in the 'war on terrorism'. 'Ends vs. means' arguments aside, 'Zero Dark Thirty' is a riveting adventure with some great action sequences, but I admit that I have a very non-PC love for films like this and that some people might find the film repugnant (especially the first half-hour).

It has been established, it wasn't torture or, quoting that dishonest euphemism, "enhanced interrogation" that took the intelligence community to Bin Laden. So, how is it possible that this film by intelligent people would perpetrate that lie? The film is technically brilliant but it becomes tedious because, naturally, we know the ending. The other strange fact is the casting of Jessica Chastain. She seems elsewhere, emotionally and otherwise. I couldn't connect with her, I was far too aware of the "acting" I see she's getting lots of acting nominations, I don't quite get it. Katheryn Bigelow at the helm does a truly extraordinary job, but I can't help, worrying that most people will take this as fact and, perhaps, the most important aspect is pure fiction. No tortured prisoner took us to Bin Laden, okay?

Superb espionage/military-drama from Kathryn Bigelow (who directed the even more impressive The Hurt Locker). Details the search for and elimination of Osama Bin Laden.

Tight, intriguing plot. Excellent direction from Bigelow - the tension is built, and even though you know how it ends, it stays incredibly engrossing throughout. You hardly realise that the movie is over 2 1/2 hours long, the high level of engagement is so constant and the pace of the movie so perfect.

Great performance from Jessica Chastain in the lead role. Good support from Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Mark Strong and Jennifer Ehle. Minor parts for Joel Edgerton and James Gandolfini.

When I watch a movie, the last thing I would judge it on is Politics.

Also, it amazes me how personal people on here can become.

I thought it was a good movie.

The actors came across as credible.

It showed some of the ugly sides of war.

The story kept me alert.

It kept me awake.

It isn't perfect, however, which movie is? And at the end I felt fulfilled.

At the end, I guess you see what you want to see...

Zero Dark Thrity is the new movie from Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow who has enjoyed a rich and varied career to date which will surely be swamped under the weight of opinion lumped on this picture. She is a highly adept film-maker and the aforementioned Hurt Locker might just be the finest example of a war movie since Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket. Zero Dark Thirty is a different beast altogether. It is a fact-based account of the events leading up to the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Its a touchy subject which is largely handled with great care and aplomb by the cast and film-makers. Thats not to say the movie is perfect, its actually far from it.

The movie is talky without being overly analytical or detailed. I learned nothing from the 157 minute runtime that i couldn't find out in 20 minutes on the web, but maybe that's the point. The word chronicle is often bounded around when talking about Zero Dark Thirty. Chronicle is defined as 'A factual written account of important or historical events in the order of their occurrence' and thats precisely what the film is and not a touch more. There is no meat offered to the viewer by way of engaging character or story development, indeed, the film is mostly an anti-cinematic experience aside from the last 20 or so minutes.

An interesting counter point is the popular 'Homeland' show which also charts a driven female CIA agent as she tracks a known and dangerous terrorist. Its true that both works have completely different end-games but it is interesting to note just how far removed the two are. Homeland is purely for entertainment purposes and Zero Dark Thirty strives to be factual and relevant. I would argue that Zero Dark Thirty could have never won over every critic and begs the question, can you really expect to make a piece of solid entertainment about tracking and killing Osama Bin Laden? The answer is no. They would have been surely lambasted for glorifying a potentially inflammatory event (please see Oliver Stone's dreadful 'World Trade Center'). Therefore, we are left with this glossy, extremely well made, pseudo-documentary which is never particularly involving or like-able.

Also with all due respect, Chastain can count herself very lucky to have just been nominated for best actress. She was surely a shoe-in for the Oscar nod for just turning up here as the film lends itself, due to its 'factual' nature, to receiving the adoration of the academy. Her performance, much like the film, barely exists but to prop up and relay the events. She cries when people die and she is cast iron in the face of a male dominated, scary world but she is barely a character in her own right. People aren't talking about Maya's dominance of the screen, they are talking about the half-truisms of the events themselves. I'm not asking for any meaningful superfluous back story or exposition but i wanted to see her out of the situation, if just for a few minutes. As an audience we need to know the characters aside from them telling us what is going to happen in the movie. Don't get me wrong, Chastain does nothing wrong here, its more a problem with the writing or maybe just with the style of movie they were trying to make here that breaks her for me. Another interesting counter-point is Ben Affleck's excellent Argo. Here we have a movie based on some pretty harrowing true events but its handled with a cinematic eye. Affleck takes some liberties with the truth in Argo but what he does make is a piece of cinema that excites the audience, involves you in the picture and the characters completely and most importantly stays with you after the fact. I felt nothing at Zero Dark Thirty's conclusion, even when watching Chastain cry, i didn't appreciate the action or care. I didn't feel anything for her character, i knew her about as well as i did Osama Bin Laden (movie equivalent of course).

I think my main problem was with the point of the whole exercise. Its a film that sits on the fence, never glorifies or revels nor does it offer any comment or insight. So what then was the point? Do we really live in a world where is it necessary to make a film about every important event in history? How is this any different to watching a fluffy news story? Do we really need attractive people on the silver screen for people to give a sh*t about whats going on in the world? I hope not.

All of that being said, Zero Dark Thirty is never an exercise in patience, it rumbles along at a steady pace and if all your looking for is a chronicle of events post 9/11 you'll find a lot to be interested in. I just cant shake the question, what was the point?

I've seen all the reasons viewers (and some critics) dislike this film, but in my opinion it is infinitely superior to ARGO in its authenticity and dramatic quality. The final scenes, when the SEAL team, goes into Ben Laden's house, are brilliantly rendered. The idea of doing it mostly in the dark with flashes of illumination by "night vision" green is a brilliant touch, which most directors would never have attempted.

The performances by Jessica Chastain, of course, Jason Clark and Jennifer Ehle are top drawer and the torture scenes, while brutal, are necessary--because that's the way it happened. Congratulations to Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal for getting it right.

I don't want to put the knock on Argo, because I found it entertaining. But it's artificiality provides a distinct contrast with Zero Dark Thirity's authenticity, and authenticity wins.