A Mostly Well Made and Tense Thriller With One Huge Flaw

Rating: 7/10 (4 November 2018)

This was a well made thriller from Katheryn Bigelow who is one of the best directors in Hollywood. For some reason, this movie slipped through the cracks, and I totally forgot to watch it, but I finally put it on and I mostly enjoyed it. It was very tense, and the last 20 minutes were thrilling and brilliantly directed.
With that being said, my main problem with this movie is how it frames the plot. The real life story of the hunting and killing of Laden is a huge story with a lot of moving pieces, but this movie decides to put the entire weight of the story on one character call Maya. Framing the plot this way wouldn't be a problem if Maya wasn't such an empty character. Where is she from? Does she has any family? What motivates her? What emotional effect does these events have on her? What's the stakes for her? None of these questions are answered, which makes her an extremely uninteresting main character. Katheryn Bigelow centers this entire movie around one character, but she absolutely fails to explore that character anywhere beyond a surface level. This movie is good for what it is, but it just doesn't have the impact it was going for.