An incredible film, of incredible events.

Rating: 8/10 (11 September 2013)

Kathryn Bigelow is a goddess at making suspenseful war thrillers. And Zero Dark Thirty is no exception. The story itself is relatively straightforward, it follows the 10 years of events that led from 9/11 to the capturing and killing of Osama Bin Laden. And it's done beautifully.
The direction is excellent. The camera-work is amazing. The suspense never lets up for one second. Bigelow makes every scene so captivatingly realistic that you wont know whether it's a documentary or a thriller. She always manages to create the perfect atmosphere be it suffocatingly tense, or upliftingly relieving. And while predictable(it's technically a history movie after all) it still manages to make you cling to the edge of your seat.
The acting is phenomenal, Jessica Chastain knocks it out of the park, and the rest of the cast supports her incredibly well. It's no small wonder she got an Oscar nom.
The writing is great. The characters are very well developed(for a movie not focused on the characters rather than the plot). The pacing is just right. The plot manages to keep you nailed to the screen despite being relatively well known overall, and being not at all surprising.
The problems lie with Kathryn Bigelow's greatest strength being her greatest weakness. It's that damn obvious, and borderline obnoxious, American war propaganda, The Hurt Locker had the same problem, and was lessened by it. Cant you just make the story speak for itself rather than force feeding us the message that "yeah America is awesome at catching bad guys" or at least make it a little more subtle?
Thankfully every other aspect of the film is simply brilliant, so i managed to look past it, and i can see that Bigelow is improving, since she didn't have the cheesy ending The Hurt Locker did, but made an actually powerful scene for the last one. But it's a strong warning to anyone planning to watch this. Be prepared, you may not like the American propaganda.