Good but not Great.

Rating: 6/10 (18 January 2013)

The movie was high quality no doubt, but I give it a low overall mark because of the way the director chose to tell the story, which is through the eyes of the CIA operative and not much more. I expect she thought this was the main reason to make the movie, highlighting the dogged persistence shown by the woman. However this resulted in many very relevant and important things being left out of the plot. Little or no Seal Team training for the mission is shown, and there would have been a lot of it. There would have been lots of discussion about whether to involve the Pakistanis in the raid - this is not even mentioned. Pakistani F-16's are scrambled when they use a Blackhawk - mentioned once but not (as far as I could detect) mentioned again. There were many facets to this story, and Bigelow's tunnel-vision has resulted in a movie that is good, but not great, and about 45 minutes too long. Jessica Chastain is up for Best Actress at the Oscars for her role, and I do not believe it is worthy. Her acting was solid - but nothing remarkable; the best scene is where she chews out her boss in the corridor. 6/10.