Among The Best Movies of 2012

Rating: 9/10 (12 January 2013)

The movie begins with a black screen. It is 11th September, 2001 and there are voice overs talking about the crash,about the cockpits and last words of the passengers who were on board the fateful flights or who were burning to death in the towers. The action then shifts to 2003 wherein the CIA is torturing a detainee to find out relevant information. There is a CIA analyst who is watching the torture and is being repelled by it. A few years and a few bombings and attacks later, the detainee tells them the name of Bin Laden's courier and the hunt begins. Brilliantly directed, this for me is the movie of the year. The viewer has to have rudimentary knowledge about the "honchos" of Al Qaeda to follow the proceedings and I was kind of fortunate that I had read No Easy Day by Mark Owen before watching this. The acting is brilliant with Chastain looking like a sure shot bet to win the Best Actress Oscar. She is amazing and conveys her disgust,anger and sadness so well that it is very difficult to digest the fact that she is a comparative newbie.Screenplay is very gripping and Boal is in a fight to the finish with Tarantino for the best original screenplay. The direction is better than it was in The Hurt Locker and hence I was surprised that Bigelow wasn't nominated. This is a movie to define a decade of fighting terrorism and is a spellbinding account of the same.