Thorough and intelligent

Rating: 8/10 (19 June 2013)

The title Zero Dark Thirty, referring in military-speak to the 12:30 am time in which American forces broke into a compound in Abbottabad and killed Osama bin Laden, is suitably apt for a film that puts procedural above all else. It's the lack of emotion and absence of any real identifiable character development that makes Kathryn Bigelow's thriller all the more absorbing, rushing from shouty suits in offices to dusty interrogation rooms, refusing to skip any details that led to the death of America's greatest ever enemy. Unless you've been locked in a basement for the past two or so years, you will be well aware of what happens at the climax, but it's what led to the news story that is so interesting, given that the events have been relatively hidden or unknown to the public.
Young, green CIA officer Maya (Jessica Chastain) arrives in Pakistan, assigned to work with fellow officer Dan (Jason Clarke), who is in the middle of an interrogation with Ammar al-Baluchi, a suspect in the 9/11 attacks. After days (possibly weeks) of waterboarding and humiliation, al-Baluchi gives up the name of Abu Ahmed, who he identifies as bin Laden's personal courier. When Dan is reassigned and with the practise of torture becoming political taboo, Maya finds herself working on hunches and scraps trying to track down the mysterious Abu Ahmed, who many claim to be dead. But after a fellow analyst finds new information, Maya is led to a large compound in Pakistan, and prepares for a Navy SEAL-led infiltration.
For such a cold film, there is always the danger of losing the audience in the sheer frankness of it all. The saving grace is undoubtedly Chastain, Oscar-nominated for her steely portrayal of a woman whose obsession borders on dangerous. She shows relatively little emotion, even when exposed to Dan's brutal torture routines, and the film rarely shows her out of her work-place. There is no man in her life, thankfully, and will gladly step over someone if she thought it would bring her closer to her target. But, like Jeremy Renner's William James in The Hurt Locker (2009), she is the perfect tool for the job. Not necessarily likable, but fit for her purpose. She is a modern action hero, using words and persistence over machine guns and body paint.
Like the work of Paul Greengrass, Bigelow manages to make an action thriller routed in reality, making as much out of a phone call as a gun fight. And it's the interactions of the hierarchy and the political manoeuvring that keep the film moving, highlighting the possible repercussions, politically, socially and ethically, of every minute decision. But when the real action does come, it doesn't disappoint, as a team of grunts (amongst them Joel Edgerton and Chris Pratt) storm bin Laden's compound in almost permanent night-vision mode. It's captured in all it's confusion, as unsuspecting heads pop out of doors and bullets are fired at unseen targets. The film could have been a sickening exercise in puffy-chested patriotism, but in Bigelow's - and screenwriter Mark Boal's - hands, it is thorough and intelligent, harking back to the 1970's when topical film-making was still important.
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