Seems realistic, but too protracted and too focused on a single character

Rating: 7/10 (24 January 2013)

Although the plot covers the events over a decade, the ones picked for showing could have been much shorter - 2,5 hours is too long for a movie where interrogations, surveillances and mappings prevail. Thus, the movie is often arid, although there are sudden twists; well, the first is really sudden, then you start to expect a frames before shocking events are rather similarly depicted. The ending is trivial as well.
The casting is decent: Jessica Chastain is brilliant and deserves her Golden Globe and Academy Award nomination, but she is too much on screen, at times one might think that this was her operation, being the chief coordinator or so. All others are supporting actors and not really catchy, with the exception of James Gandolfini and Mark Strong - but they were too briefly on screen. So it is all like a solo story, there is no even cast to follow and enjoy.
Zero Dark Thirty is above average, but 5 Academy Award nominations?! Too much, I think. Mrs Bigelow has directed far better movies; by the way, Hurt Locker did not impress me either, too static and the events too "far" from me and not attractive. Both these movies are OK to watch once, but hardly more.