Jessica Chastain is too beautiful.

Rating: 7/10 (4 January 2013)

I wish I could believe that one person was doggedly responsible for maintaining the focus on the manhunt (womanhunt?) for Osama. But I cannot. Jessica Chastain says in her IMDb biography that the facts are real, its a real story about this woman. I cannot. Maya, the Heroine is too beautiful to be believable. She's a "10" in beauty and a "10" in persistence.
The soldiers are likable and loyal. They are heroes and all of this action will attract more recruits to the Army. I cannot find any fault or criticism in the way the Director portrayed them.
Because this movie does not touch the heartstrings, it is sort of gritty all of the way through, it left me speechless. I watched a one dimensional story with a already known ending. Another dimension could have been portrayed with the (false) story of some lovers. This heroine does not have any friends the movie says. Think of "Titanic", an action/drama movie that had a 2nd dimension regarding some lovers tucked into the story. Here we only have persistence and action.
I wonder how Muslims view this movie.
To be sure, Karen Bigelow is a master crafts-women of action movies. But movie of the year? "Lincoln" gave me time to reflect on moral issues, law, the character of Lincoln and other historical facts. This movie "Zero Dark Thirty" seems to try to gain something by showing us "how to torture". Take the towel, take the water, pour it on the towel. We've learned how to torture.
In Lincoln, on the other hand, we saw the manner in which moral gray areas were decided upon. Here in Zero Dark, we see there is a procedure to torturing somebody. Step 1, 2, 3. Pretend to be their friend, then torture them if they don't tell the truth. I think this movie could have had more depth if the moral issue of torture were attended to.
I cannot agree that this is movie of the year. It never hit my "revenge button" because this is old history. I liked how well it was paced with no slop. It is a well crafted one dimensional action movie that uses a heroine who is too beautiful to be believable. Please, Hollywood, please stop using these gorgeous women to always take our attention away. In this case, it disallowed me to focus on the revenge motive. It glamorized the heroine for her persistence; yet it was the soldiers who were the heroes.
I felt that "The Impossible" was a more painful movie to watch. I feel that "Lincoln" should be a a more likely pick for movie of the year. Sorry audience.