How Hollywood navigates black ops, geopolitical espionage and covert vested interests

Rating: 7/10 (28 July 2013)

How should Hollywood approach real world stories about black ops, geopolitical espionage and covert vested interests, around which whirl clouds of doubt and conspiracy? According to Zero Dark Thirty, you tell something close to the official story and let it stand or fall on its own merits.
Events seem, at least initially, to be barely evaluated and leave much interpretation up to the viewer. But then, what to include and what not to include? While being taken to task for suggesting that information gained via torture was effective in revealing Bin Laden's whereabouts, all Zero Dark Thirty really does is show that it occurred behind the USA's delusions of moral ascendancy, regardless of the intelligence outcomes.
The potential for a heroic narrative is allowed to unravel somewhat. The film's authors lend a hand by portraying the hunt for Bin Laden as a bitter obsession that hollowed out the life of its female protagonist (in truth a melange of several female agents who drove the long quest for retribution and closure).
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