Boring procedural overtaken by events

Rating: 1/10 (2 February 2015)

You have all heard of a police procedural, well, this is a CIA procedural, until the killing of Osama bin Laden just before release meant the film finishes on a high of US Seals celebrating executing an old man as if they had won the Super Bowl! Presumably it was meant to end on a real low note of the heroine working for 11 years to find bin Laden, but not succeeding! I started watching with anticipation. So immediate scenes of US callously torturing countless Arabs ( all excused by the need for revenge for 9/11 - 2,000 - how many innocent killed at Hiroshima?), before heroine (with permanent pained and liberal disapproving look played by Jessica Chastain) introduces a little more subtlety. Don't bother trying to catch the inaudible dialogue, it is pure mumblecore and irrelevant - US filmmakers believe you do not want to know or care about the identity of the various Arabs being tortured. This is a procedural and it boringly drifts along with subtitles showing the different locations (more important than the Arabic characters?) where the various torturing takes place.
Frankly I gave up after 40 minutes and turned to a tenth repeat of 'Foyle's War!' I then watched the end - or should that be two ends? The proper one finishes with a downbeat assessment of 11 years of faithful, hangdog failure, and your career is safe as a minor operative. Then suddenly we are in Afghanistan/Pakistan watching a fully togged, lit up Navy SEAL unit helicoptering in to kill and then steal the body of bin Laden. And guess who gets to visually identify the corpse? Yes, our heroine, the minor operative. Crass and at odds with the rest of the film.
This is really a dramatized documentary for TV. Clichés crowd in from the director and scriptwriter, as well as twitching facials from Ms Chastain instead of acting still. It is a boring non-event except to an American audience, as the early torture criticism (?) is overwhelmed by the final section. To show how bad this film is. After bin Laden is dead, Ms Chastain leaves on an huge transport empty plane - "You can go anywhere" and the dreaded utterly predictable visual from Ms Bigelow comes - the huge ramp of the plane closes (Yes, closure for the heroine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Argh!!!!!!!!!!!!) Oscars for direction and screenplay - please!!!!