Impressive re-creation of recent history

Rating: 8/10 (17 February 2014)

"Zero Dark Thirty" chronicles one of the greatest successful manhunts of all time - the one that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan on May 1, 2011. With a screenplay by Mark Boal and direction by Kathryn Bigelow, the movie provides a methodical, step-by-step re- enactment of the decade-long hunt as seen through the eyes of Maya Lambert, a fictional CIA analyst who is actually a composite of several female analysts who played key roles in locating the ever-elusive al Qaeda leader.
Much has been made of the fact that the movie seemingly endorses the view that the use of torture led to the discovery of bin Laden's whereabouts. This assertion caused such a controversy at the time of the movie's release that many felt it ultimately hurt its chances of walking home with the Best Picture Oscar that year. In all fairness to the movie makers, however, the film actually doesn't seem to be making that case, since the scenes early on depicting torture all lead to eventual dead ends, while the piece of information that initially sets the investigators onto the right path clearly comes much later, after torture is no longer being used as a tactic. Yet, had the filmmakers NOT shown torture being used in the early stretches of the film - which take place not too long after 9/11 - they would not have been truthful to the times in which the story is set.
But it is as a drama that we must ultimately judge "Zero Dark Thirty" - and, in that respect, the news is mainly positive. The movie stays intensely focused on the matter at hand, not allowing itself to get distracted by side forays into too many irrelevant factors or overly- detailed character back stories. Yet, while this is generally a virtue, it does result in a certain weakness as well, mainly, a lack of depth in the characters, particularly the main one. One need only compare "Zero Dark Thirty" to something like Showtime's "Homeland" to see the advantages the long-form format has over the short-form when dealing with subjects as complex as this one. And one need only compare ZDT's Maya with "Homeland"s Carrie (Claire Danes) to see how much more fully developed the latter is as a character. Maya is allowed to register fear, anger, frustration, determination, disappointment, etc., but we never feel that we really get to know her as a person. For one thing, we never see her in a single relationship with anyone other than her colleagues (or even hear of one mentioned, come to think of it), even though the movie spans nearly a decade.
That being said, the movie does convey, through Jessica Chastain's riveting performance, the very real toll exacted on individuals who dedicate their lives to a dogged pursuit of terrorists and who feel heavily the burden of heading off any attacks in the future. Perhaps the lack of any reference to Maya's personal life is an implicit acknowledgment of that fact. Regardless, Chastain provides so luminous a beacon for us to follow along the journey that we can't help but connect with the pursuit on a deeply human level.
Chastain gets strong support from Jason Clark, Kyle Chandler, Jennifer Ehle, James Gandolfini and Chris Pratt ("Everwood," "Parks and Recreation") in the atypical role (for him) of a heroic Navy Seal.
In fact, the movie's meticulous re-enactment of the Navy Seals' successful raid on the Abbottabad compound is alone worth the price of admission. It really does make us feel as if we were a part of history.