It's a 21st-century war movie.

Rating: 10/10 (14 January 2013)

This movie is outstanding. The acting is strong, the story is compelling, the dialog incisive and the cinematography impressive. The movie does not play politics. Rather it tells a tremendously dramatic story about courage, fortitude and determination. The story has a beginning, a middle and an end, and although the audience knows the final outcome, that does not affect or reduce the movie's dramatic impact. The source of the drama is not the actual tracking down of Osama bin Laden but the interactions within the intelligence community that was under a lot of pressure to find targets, relying on uncertain information obtained by questionable means in a hostile environment. The movie graphically depicts frustrated American operatives frantically using torture to obtain information from detainees regarding bin Laden's whereabouts with limited results. The movie also depicts American operatives flagrantly violating Pakistani airspace to attack bin Laden. Whether these actions were proper is left to the audience to decide; the movie does not take sides. But what the movie does convey is the fact that the United States is fighting a war that is unlike any war previously fought, with an enemy that is elusive and transnational, and that tactics requiring speed and stealth can produce positive results, provided there is accurate intelligence.