The Film About The Pursuit Of Osama Bin Laden

Rating: 10/10 (25 March 2013)

Zero Dark Thirty is a dramatization of the United States operation that found and killed Osama bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda. It stars Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Joel Edgerton, Chris Pratt, Jennifer Ehle, Mark Strong, Kyle Chandler, and Édgar Ramírez. It was directed by Katherine Bigelow.
Maya, a young CIA officer in 2003, has spent her entire brief career since graduating from high school focused solely on gathering intelligence related to Osama bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda, following the terrorist organization's September 11 attacks in the United States. She has just been reassigned to the U.S. embassy in Pakistan to work with a fellow officer, Dan. During the first months of her assignment, Maya often accompanies Dan to a black site for his continuing interrogation of Ammar al-Baluchi, a detainee with suspected links to several of the 9/11 hijackers. Dan subjects the detainee to torture, including water boarding, and humiliation. He and Maya eventually trick Ammar into divulging that an old acquaintance, who is using the alias Abu Ahmed, is working as a personal courier for bin Laden. Other detainees corroborate this, with some claiming Abu Ahmed delivers messages between bin Laden and a man referred to as Abu Faraj.
Maya continues to sift through masses of data and information, using a variety of technology, hunches and sharing insights. Displaying the zeal and frustrations of a "single-tasker", she concentrates on finding Abu Ahmed, determined to use him to find bin Laden. During a span of five years, she survives the 2008 Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing as well as being shot at in her car by armed men. Dan, departing on re-assignment, warns Maya about a possible change in politics, suggesting that the new administration may prosecute those officers who had been involved in torture. Maya's fellow officer and friend Jessica is killed in the 2009 Camp Chapman attack. A Jordanian detainee claims the man previously identified, as Abu Ahmed, from a photograph, is a man he personally buried in 2001. Several CIA officers – Maya's seniors – conclude the target who could be Abu Ahmed is long dead, and that they have searched a false trail for nine years.
Meanwhile, the President's National Security Adviser tasks the CIA with producing a plan to capture or kill bin Laden if it can be confirmed that he is in the compound. An agency team devises a plan to use two top-secret stealth helicopters flown by the Army's 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment to secretly enter Pakistan and insert a U.S. Navy SEAL team to raid the compound. Before briefing the President of the United States, the CIA Director holds a meeting of his top officials, who assess only a 60–80% chance that bin Laden is living in the compound, rather than another high-value target. Maya, also in attendance, insists the chances are 95–100%.
The raid is approved. Although execution is complicated by one of the helicopters crashing, the SEALs kill a number of people within the compound, among them a man on the compound's top floor who is revealed to be bin Laden. They bring bin Laden's body back to a U.S. base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where Maya visually confirms the identity of the corpse.
Gripping, suspenseful, and brilliantly crafted, Zero Dark Thirty dramatizes the hunt for Osama bin Laden with intelligence and an eye for detail. From the very first scenes, director Kathryn Bigelow demonstrates why she is such a formidable filmmaker, as adept with human emotion as with visceral, pulse-quickening action. She tells the story very well, very efficiently, but doesn't really say much about it, which is ironic given the response to the film in some quarters. It is just awful that Bigelow robbed of an Oscar nomination.
We know the ending as most are familiar with the story,yet remain mesmerized by familiar details, filmed with a harrowing sense of urgency. It's as close to being in the White House situation room that night, watching a closed-circuit broadcast, as anyone could expect.It surely should have been given the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Acting was also commendable especially Jessica Chastain,who played the hyper-focused Maya with intensity and passion.I definitely believed that she should have won the Oscar instead of Jennifer Lawrence.
Obviously, the film wasn't free from controversy considering that it presents graphic torture scenes used by US military men in extracting information from terrorists.It has also been described by some as a misleading portrayal of torture as critical to the United States' success in gaining information on bin Laden's associates and location. In addition, some politicians suggested that the filmmakers were given improper access to classified materials, which they denied.It is viewed by some as propaganda for torture. This could have probably dismayed some people from Washington especially those who formulated the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) which supports "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as the use of torture and indefinite detention.Also,the final scene as Maya is last seen boarding a military transport to return to the U.S. and sitting in its vast interior as its only passenger as she begins to weep quietly.This have given the audience the impression of the on-going bin Laden conspiracies that the terrorist is probably still alive or he is long dead before the raid was conducted.
Knowing Hollywood, it definitely feared from giving those one great film too much acclaim as due to its theme being political in nature such not giving it the Best Picture for this film was definitely better than Argo,the Bigelow snub and the Chastain robbery.But nevertheless, it film that should not be missed especially by lovers of great movies.