Maya/Jessica Chastain vs Osama Bin Laden

Rating: 8/10 (12 September 2015)

After the horrible attacks which happened on September 11, 2001, one man became the most wanted man on the Planet by every law enforcement authorities in the world: Osama Bin Laden.
Zero Dark Thirty recalls the decade long search for OBL by the CIA and in particularly by one woman, Maya, who dedicated his life and friends to bring him to justice.
Maya is very obsessed with OBL. She doesn't focus on any other objective than the capture or kill of the most wanted man on the planet, the brain behind 9/11 and the murderer of thousands of people. She is a very dark character who doesn't show much her emotion and who doesn't flinch. Most of all she is resilient and while everyone around him lost hope to find Bin Laden she was the only one to carry on and finally successfully tracking him down leading to the Seal Team Six operation which ultimately ended his life.
Jessica Chastain is very convincing in her interpretation of Maya as a cold CIA analyst. Such an intense character requires a certain resilience especially while shooting the torture scenes which are quite hard to see.
I can't talk about this movie without evoking the torture scenes. They are certainly crude and really hard to witness but you can't deny that those enhanced interrogation techniques were widely used by the interrogators to get information from their prisoners. On that movie we are directly introduced to them at the very first scene, a sign that everything will be disclosed even the harshest truth about how intelligence was obtained. So yes those scenes are terrible but necessary. Ignoring them would be ignoring the true reality.
Now lets finally talk about the assault of the Abbottabad Compound which sheltered Osama Bin Laden. I have to say that I was amazed by the high attention of details brought to the construction of the set. It is looking so real I had the impression it was shot on site while the real one was demolished soon after the raid. This is really an amazing job from the construction crew. The attack is also very well shot and intense without any exaggeration from the scriptwriters and actors.
So here it is I give it a 8 out of ten. The story is captivating and well shot. The performance of the casting is convincing especially Jessica Chastain's. But this movie is not for everyone. It is a violent movie at the image of what the reality looks like. The torture scenes requires to have a solid stomach. But it's a great movie which is probably not to the taste of everyone but it deserves its Oscar.