Zero Dark is Slow and Steady

Rating: 7/10 (10 January 2013)

My first inclination watching this movie was to tell people to wait for it to come out on DVD or play on TV. But I did go ahead and write a full review so here goes...
If I would have left the theater in the first hour and then written this review, I would tell you to skip the movie. Seriously. For the first 50 minutes, take a cat nap. I literally did for about 5 minutes and didn't miss a thing. Save a couple of mild, yet still uncomfortable, torture....excuse me, "information extraction" scenes, the first almost hour of this movie is a snooze. We don't even get any character development until after that first hour.
The rest of the movie though reveals why that painfully slow build-up was beneficial. The movie does pick up but keep in mind that this movie will not be a flashy, violent thunderstorm. It's supposed allure is that it's a slow and steady, long (2 hrs 37 mins long to be exact) rain storm. The last hour was unexpectedly gripping (compared to the beginning at least) and you're left feeling satisfied, now understanding the pace and heaviness. If you believe the Osama Bin Laden (referred to as UBL for Usama Bin Laden) search and destroy story in the first place, it's a fascinating look at what really went into finding him. If you're skeptical, which I think is healthy, it's still an interesting look at what tactics our great U S of A uses and how terrorist cells often work. There are quite a few unrealistic elements about CIA operations thrown in though. Sometimes I found myself wondering, "Really? THAT'S what they want us to believe the CIA would do?"
A little caveat for you, war itself is not pretty. But this isn't the bloody, front lines side of war (though there's quite a bit of blood in the final scenes). This is the CIA side of war, the counter- terrorism side (whom some may argue is ALSO terrorism, but I won't get into all of that). It's uncomfortable to watch a human being purposefully hurt or slowly physically destroyed, no matter for what reason, even though the scenes shown (all within the first hour) were VERY mild, IMO, compared to what's probably really going on in those concrete rooms. I used utilitarianism to justify it in my mind. But if the visual of the aforementioned will bother you, do not go see this movie. If you can get through that first hour, there's no more after that. The rest of the movie is pretty much the wild goose chase to find UBL. And again, I mean "wild" only figuratively because this is a subdued movie.
So in conclusion, be PATIENT with this one, do not expect a purely factual documentary, take on the heaviness and seriousness of the actors (particularly the lead actress Jessica Chastain, who did a great job conveying the weight of this world on her shoulders), and you will leave satisfied.