Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

If one thing is for certain, Zero Dark Thirty (2012) will be the most talked about film this winter, as it has already been lauded with accolades from several critics groups (currently appears as number 1 on most top ten lists), and will go on to garner several awards nods throughout the next two months.  It is also already the center of a lot of controversy surrounding its depiction of the CIA's methods in obtaining information from detainees, and a general attitude that is very pro-USA.

The film details one woman's near decade long hunt for Osama Bin Laden, and the lengths she goes to dig up any information that will lead her back to Bin Laden.  This woman is Maya, played by Jessica Chastain in her first big starring role, after fantastic supporting roles in last year's The Help and The Tree of Life.  We learn little about her, but we see her as a machine working non-stop to nail Bin Laden to the wall.  This includes ignoring her superior's orders to focus on where the next terrorist attack will take place to focus all her effort in her hunt.

Opening on a blank screen, September 11th is established by the 911 phone calls made by terrified Americans trapped in the tower, realizing they are facing their doom.  Next, its 2003, and Maya has just landed in Pakistan to begin her work on the search.  She witnesses a very brutal torture scene where detainee Ammar (Reda Kateb) is waterboarded, treated like a dog, and stuffed into a box smaller then a coffin.  Maya is visibly shaken by the experience, but when left alone briefly with Ammar, who tells her that his torturer Dan (Jason Clarke) is an animal, she simply responds he can end all this by being honest.

These first scenes are definitely the most controversial of the film.  For one, the 9/11 intro feels a tad exploitive, since the WTC attacks are an easy way to get any patriotic American riled up.  Then the torture scenes, which eventually yield crucial information about one of Bin Laden's couriers that drives Maya's hunt for the rest of the film.  Director Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) never takes a solid stance either way on whether torture is good or bad, and leaves it up to the audience to react on their own.  Some will be appalled at what happens, others will support the action as a means to an end, and the lazy will criticize Bigelow for not taking a stance and telling us how to think.

In reading other reviews, I ran across a theory on the movie that I quite like and support.  Zero Dark Thirty is the story of America's revenge on Bin Laden; he organized the terrorist attacks, and we hunted him down.  Zero Dark Thirty plays out like a revenge film, and has America so desperate for retaliation and closure that we will go to any lengths to hunt down those responsible.  Its really no different then movies like Gladiator (2000), Kill Bill (2003-2004), or any number of films that involve heroes going to desperate lengths to exact their revenge on those that wronged them.

We are shown several other terrorist attacks that happened throughout the last decade, including the London bus bomb, the Marriott in Islamabad, and an attack on a CIA base that kills one of Maya's close friends and really propels her forward on her hunt.  Through this the film is able to maintain a state of suspense, as Bin Laden's continued freedom supposedly leads to all these other attacks.  The film also provides us with a literal representation of Hitchcock's definition of suspense, in which a bomb quite unexpectedly goes off near Maya.  Suspense is knowing the bomb is there, and that it will eventually go off.  Surprise is the bomb going off.  Bigelow plays out both versions of this theory in different scenes, and they work out fantastically.

Of course this all boils down to the final act, in which the final raid on Bin Laden's compound is meticulously restaged.  We watch as the soldiers systematically blow up doors, enter, and engage in firefights with the few terrorists living there.  Shot mostly in night vision, this is the scene everyone will remember, as we become active participants in the event.  The final killing of Bin Laden is not treated with loud trumpets (for one thing, the soldiers aren't sure if it is Bin Laden), and we never see his face, a wise choice on Bigelow's part.  When he is finally identified by Maya, she gets on her plane, relieved, but also lost.  For eight years she has been hunting this man, and now that he's caught, her life seems to have lost purpose.  She doesn't have any real friends or relationships, her whole life has been devoted to finding this one man.

All the actors do a fine job, and Chastain especially is superb.  She reminds one of Clarice Starling from Silence of the Lambs (1991), another headstrong woman trying to make it in a man's world.  She is fierce, tenacious, and unrelenting, and Chastain is the perfect actor for this role.  She has emerged as one of our most versatile performers today, and I look forward to many roles for her in the years to come.  The film itself is also a well crafted suspense thriller, a revenge tale for the ages.  It recounts a decade in our history, without reveling in politics.  We never glimpse Bush or Cheney, and Obama only surfaces in a Campaign interview to indicate where we are in the timeline.  Bigelow is a master at keeping her own politics at bay.

With all that being said, how did I actually feel about this film?  Is it really the best of the year?  I believe a film like this is, to a degree, critic proof (at least in the USA) because any major criticisms leveled against it could be seen as a criticism against America.  There almost seems to be an overwhelming amount of people declaring love for it because how can you talk ill of the people that were responsible for hunting down Bin Laden?  I, for one, do not consider it the best of the year, but that's also how you define the best.  For me, its a movie I want to revisit again immediately, and will enjoy a long shelf life in my DVD collection.  Zero Dark Thirty is expertly made in all aspects, but its not one I will find myself watching again anytime soon.