I can't believe how bad this movie is

Rating: 1/10 (6 January 2013)

After watching Zero Dark Thirty I am simply amazed at the critical reception it's received. In fact it's one of the most bizarre and puzzling critical reactions I've seen since more than 60% of critics liked Spiderman III on rottentomatoes To me this is simply not a good film. In fact I wouldn't even be as kind to call it merely OK or middling. I believe it's flat out bad.
Zero Dark Thirty is the type of film that needs exceptional editing and writing to work. This is because it's about a long drawn out process mainly done by people sitting at desks. The film I imagined, if as good as its reviews, would have cracking dialog, sharp plotting, quick editing The problem with the film is that it's writing and editing is quite poor. The dialogs in this film simply do not work and undermine talented actors/actresses. The characters talked to each other at a TV movie level of depth and linguistic expression. Many scenes, including some like the infamous F bomb laden ones simply do not feel believable as happening in a professional CIA setting. Many of the arguments feel stagey and "we need you to act emotional here" outburst-y, as mentioned like they'd do in a TV movie. I suspect the screenwriter wanted to make the people feel "real" and down to earth, except it does just the opposite. The dialog makes the characters feel contrived, as if trying too hard to feel real.
SPOILER - The other problem with the script is that while I do not know the details of what really happened vs what Bigelow and co. fictionalized, many parts of the manhunt felt ridiculous. eg. There is a scene where a terrorist spills all his guts information wise just because Chastain tricked him into thinking he told him all of that the night before and had memory loss. Would he really just give up and say everything like that? There's an entirely predictable explosion/death scene prompted by a smiley CIA agent going "oh just let him into the base, we don't want to spook him by scaring him" which was ridiculously naive by a trained professional. The CIA are shown a video of a detainee saying "X character is dead, I buried him, btw here's a picture" and they all just believe it as fact without questioning whether he'd be lieing. The entire plot hinges on catching a courier who they seem to find because of a long lost picture, and some other details I didn't really catch - either way the way they caught him was very confusing and not drawn out well plotting wise. The manhunt did not come off as very complex, intelligent or plotted well to me. It felt like the characters just sat around for a decade and waited for clues to fall in their lap!
Then there's the editing. This is a long, sloppily put together film. Many of the scenes feel unnecessary. There are long, forgetting scenes of people talking. For a large portion of the film I could hardly stand to watch the dull back and forths while keeping my eyes open.
Many people have pointed out the lack of character development. This is true but I also blame the dialog most of all. Chastain is a blank terrorist catching robot and simply does not feel like a real person to me. None of them do really. This makes it harder to cheer for them. They come off as terrorist catching line delivery devices, not real people with emotions.
Zero Dark Thirty came off to me as a misfire on almost every level. It's poorly written, edited, it fails to make its characters or plot interesting. Zero Dark Thirty tries so hard to be "realistic" and "naturalistic" that it forgets it's a film. But not only does it go in that docu-drama wannabe direction but it does a very poor job of feeling realistic due to its stagey characters and dialog and clearly contrived plotting and set-ups. It neither has its cake or eats it.
This is simply a colossal misfire after the near masterpiece that is the Hurt Locker for Bigelow. I am truly shocked at how poor a film this is on every level after the critical reception to it. One of the very worst films I've seen all year