Zero out of Thirty

Rating: 6/10 (2 February 2013)

High expectations are understandable, given Kathryn Bigelow's dramatic (and deserved) Academy Awards success for The Hurt Locker (2008) and given Jessica Chastain's equally deserved nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in The Help (2011).
What The Hurt Locker (THL) did achieve, Zero Dark Thirty (ZDT) failed to. Emotions were high in THL, it was tense, thrilling and there were pulsating moments that captured beautifully the role of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal team. Much of this had been shown before but Bigelow was able to unlock the human element and add much more emotion. ZDT fails to do this, resulting in a rushed documentary-like picture where no bond between audience and character is formed; where no dialogue is gripping; and where no part of the story is full of suspense or thrilling.
Much thought was put into, and much will be spoken about, the torture portrayed in ZDT. This was ZDT's unique selling point and indeed is, politically or otherwise, thought-provoking.
In today's modern world, I ask myself whether the media does a good enough job in documenting real life events; whether it is the rise and fall of Osama bib Laden or the Tsunami of 2004 that struck Thailand (and other countries). If so, do we really need a film director to cash-in from these events and churn/re-document these out onto the silver screen?
Taking this point further, The Impossible (2012) - the Oscar nominated picture about a family's incredible tale following the 2004 Tsunami, and like THL, told a single story amidst a big event and proved that a drop of a pebble into a still lake will form more beautiful ripples that the plunging of a boulder. Katheryn Bigelow in ZDT, opted for the latter and it ultimately disappointed.