Zero Dark Thirty

Rating: 7/10 (17 February 2013)

The title is a military term, it means thirty minutes past zero hour i.e. midnight, and it also refers to the darkness and secrecy that shadowed the entire mission that lasted ten years, and I was definitely interested in a dramatisation of what was momentous news, from BAFTA and Golden Globe nominated director Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break, The Hurt Locker). Basically the film opens with the sound of the tragic events of 9/11 (11th September 2001), when the Twin Towers were hit by two hijacked planes, and this ignited the search for the most dangerous man in the world, leader of al-Qaeda who orchestrated the terrorist attacks, Osama Bin Laden. In 2003 the search started when young CIA targeting officer Maya (Golden Globe winning, and Oscar and BAFTA nominated Jessica Chastain) accompanied fellow officer Dan (Jason Clarke) to numerous interrogations of detainee Ammar (Reda Kateb) who may have links with the Saudi terrorists, and they use torturous methods to get the answers that they want, but he does not give in. Eventually though Ammar is tricked into giving the name "Abu Ahmed", the alias of the personal courier for Bin Laden, and other detainees confirm that this man may be passing messages between the leader and Abu Faraj al-Libbi (Yoav Levi), who is captured in mid-2005, sometime after the attacks on London, he too is tortured for answers, his refusal to cooperate implies the importance to conceal the Abu Ahmed. Maya concentrates on trying to find Abu Ahmed, using the various masses of data and information gathered, and forms of technology, hunches and sharing insights, she hopes to use these to capture Bin Laden, this spans through the next five years, and she is in the middle of the 2008 Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing and an attempted car shooting but survives. Dan is reassigned and she warns him that officers who carried out the interrogations may be prosecuted for using torture, and after he has left the 2009 Camp Chapman attack occurs killing her friend and fellow officer Jessica (Jennifer Ehle), and worse comes when the trail may have run cold, with Jordanian detainee claiming he identified Abu Ahmed and buried his body in 2001. Researching Moroccan intelligence archives a fellow analyst suggests to Maya that the real identity of Abu Ahmed is "Ibrahim Sayeed", and agreeing this theory she gets in touch with Dan at CIT headquarters, and they find Habib was a brother of Sayeed and had a striking resemblance to Ibrahim and was killed in Afghanistan. Using CIA funding Dan purchases a Lamborghini to persuade a Kuwaiti prince to give him the telephone number for Sayeed's mother, and calling they trace the call, and there is a lot of mention of trade experience and they conclude that Abu Ahmed is the caller, and under Maya's directive with support from supervisors a number of operatives from the CIA are deployed to find Abu Ahmed, and following him in his vehicle they track him to a large urban compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The compound is put under heavy surveillance, but there is no proof that Bin Laden is inside, so several months pass until they can confirm this, all the CIA can do is plan to capture or kill the leader when their hunch is proved right. A plan is devised by the team to enter Pakistan using two to secret stealth helicopters flown by the Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment and a U.S. Navy SEAL squad will raid the place, a meeting is held by the CIA Director (James Gandolfini) to assess the 60-80% chance Bin Laden is living there, Maya is there asserting that it is a 100% chance. So on May 2nd 2011, thirty minutes after midnight, the raid is approved, the helicopters proceed to the neighbourhood and land in the compound, there is a complication with one of the helicopters crashing, but no-one is hurt, and as they spread out they kill numerous people within, until eventually they enter the main building and reach the top floor. Among the armed men they kill a particular, and (although we never see his face) and after taking a photograph he may in fact be Osama Bin Laden, his body is taken to the U.S. base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan where Maya and the other CIA officers are waiting, and when the body arrives she confirms visually that indeed the corpse is Bin Laden, and in the end she leaves as the only passenger of a military transport, and she is seen quietly weeping. Also starring Joel Edgerton as Patrick - Squadron Team Leader, Mark Strong as George, Kyle Chandler as Joseph Bradley, Édgar Ramírez as Larry from Ground Branch (as Edgar Ramirez), Lost's Harold Perrineau as Jack, Stephen Dillane as National Security Adviser, John Barrowman as Jeremy, Scott Adkins as John, Mark Duplass as Steve and Daniel Lapaine as Tim - Station Chief. Chastain gives a determined performance as the woman who would stop at nothing to capture or on her orders kill the most wanted man, the other members of the cast are good as well, the direction by Bigelow is well paced in the events leading up to the death of the terrorist leader, the torture scenes are a little hard to watch but important to the story, and it is interesting to see how the ending came about, a terrific action thriller. It won the Oscar for Best Sound Editing (tied with Skyfall), and it was nominated the for Best Editing, Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen and Best Motion Picture of the Year, it was nominated the BAFTAs for Best Film, Editing and Original Screenplay, it was nominated the Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture – Drama and Best Screenplay. Very good!