Should have been told better than this.

Rating: 3/10 (6 January 2013)

Setting aside the argument of whether torture was somehow involved in this story let's look at this from a perspective of a film rather than a cause.
Is it any good? Answer not really.
Is it worthy of an Oscar? Of course not.
It's a poorly told, poorly acted average film that simply panders to it's target audience of poorly informed Americans who will clap and cheer anything with an American flag draped over it subliminally or otherwise.
At one point someone says '3000 Americans died on 11/9/01' (yes America the correct way to write a date) but of course that's not true as a good number of other countries suffered loss at the hands of the religiously insane. This has been ignored in the same way Spielberk ignored everybody else in his SPR nonsense. American flag and patriotism equates to Oscars.
But it doesn't deserve the accolades and is probably the most over rated film of 2012 which is a shame considering the profound implication the death of UBL has for most of the civilised people on the planet. This man was the monster who ripped away our cushion of comfort and revealed the reality that we can all die at any time at the hands of crazy religious people.
Of course the aftermath of 11/9/01 has resulted in ten times more innocent deaths and even the death of UBL will not satisfy the crazy God of all the crazy people on both sides. But of all the people on Earth he certainly was one that needed Death. And credit to America's president for finally removing such a horrible individual.
But the film of the hunt for this creature should have been better. The story was confusing and some of it did not even make sense. People banged tables and shouted and it seemed to me to be making the point that the hunt for UBL was in someway directly related to the terror attacks being carried out in various countries. A dramatic race to stop the terror by killing the Global Mastermined as in a Bond film. Kill UBL and these attacks will somehow stop? Maybe I read it wrong but that's what it seemed to be saying. Of course UBL dying would not have prevented one single death in the last 10 years. It was a symbolic act that was important to the civilised members of the Human Race but in reality was of little consequence to the death and destruction.
The CIA seemed to be a rather bumbling organisation which I am sure is not the case. The Redhead seeming to be the only one there who had a clue and her 100% certainty that UBL was there swayed any doubters and the operation went ahead.
The raid itself was not very dramatic which reflects on the film maker herself. She is a good director but a tad over rated. And her limitations in telling this story are there for all to see. Seal Team Six were a pretty anonymous bunch who carried out their operation well enough with a few glitches but without any tension being conveyed to the viewer via the film maker. It was not dull as such simply ordinary. Which is probably how it happened but this was meant to be a dramatic recreation of the raid but it had no real drama.
There was nothing in the film that grabbed the viewer. Nothing to immerse them in the film and it's complexities which were myriad. It was a very ordinary film with barely decent acting and few points in the story which made the whole thing watchable.
So when this is crowned best Picture or whatever don't forget it really isn't and is just best picture draped in the Stars and Stripes.
Which is a shame as it was an important story for ALL of us and deserved a better telling. And for the record I am OK with torture for the purpose of saving lives as long as we torture the right people of course which sadly we (and I include my own country the UK here) don't have a great record of.