Zero Dark Thirty is Kathryn Bigelow's masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (4 January 2013)

"Through the eye's of Jessica Chastain's Maya we are given a film of obsession over the period of twelve years seeing a women change from the innocent young women to a strong women not knowing what her next move will be"
Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal make another war film but this film unlike The Hurt Locker is not about soldiers but about the search for the man responsible for that war. The film starts as a torture is being done by Dan (Jason Clarke) as he shows new girl Maya (Jessica Chastain) of what her job will entail for the next 12 years of her life. We are then following the development of Maya as she focuses on this one case following many leads which lead to no good but the final lead in the film leads to the compound where seal team six enter to kill Bin Laden on May 1st 2011.
The film is compelling throughout watching this women who was responsible for finding the man responsible for 911 and how she was very obsessive in her look to find the man. The movie does a great job of building tension throughout as we enter the raid scene which is the most important part of the movie as we focus solely on the raid not going back to any other characters or getting reactions from Maya just seeing her plan go through. The final words at the end of the movie "Where do you want to go?" where perfect words to describe the main character of Maya because she spent 12 years to search for Osama Bin Laden and the reaction from Maya summed up the whole character and how she does not know what to do next. The film is technically well done from the haunting score by Alexandre Desplat, beautiful cinematography by Greig Freiser and the very detailed recreation of Bin Laden's compound. The film's depiction of torture has been talked about but my opinion is that those scenes are not supporting torture but showing what it truly looked like.
Jessica Chastain plays the main character Maya and finally she has gotten a lead role worthy of her talents that have been underused in her many supporting roles. Maya as a character may be a women but in a mans world she does not act like a women throughout. Chastain plays all her scenes so well and in her final scene where the character finally gets emotional it shows the toll this women had been put through over this time period. Jennifer Ehle plays Maya's friend Jessica. Even if she does not appear in movie for a long time she plays all of her scenes so well. Her character was interesting for me because she seemed to be what Maya wanted to beat at the start and her departure from the film left a big change to Maya for the rest of the film. Jason Clarke plays Dan and when we first meet his character he is torturing someone and this is where Clarke's performance is best. Like every other character he leaves only to come back completely changed going from his tough self to what Maya was like when she started at the CIA, this is great to see the transformation especially when the two are in the same scene in front of James Gandolfini.
The film was amazing and unlike Argo (another film about the CIA), this film feels more researched and instead of going for the more Hollywood style the film feels more gritty and real. The film becomes even stronger especially when resting on Chastain's shoulders with her giving her strongest career performance for me.
MOVIE GRADE: A+ (MVP: Jessica Chastain)