Chilling, And Engrossing Without Adding Unnecessary Glorification To Its True Story.

Rating: 7/10 (29 September 2018)

By far, this movie has the most gripping and riveting story among all political thrillers I've seen so far. I can't believe that I was so invested watching a movie from one of my least favorite genres. That's largely due to Boal and Bigelow's intelligent script that offers a knotted, nuanced, realistic, and somewhat honest look into a real story about war on terror. Each small detail that leads to another is more convincing than the last. And however the plot is very intricate, I never felt that it was so convoluted that can be difficult to follow.
Of course, we get a one-sided look into the real events, but the movie didn't try to be patriotic at all. There are quite a lot of torture scenes at the beginning that are really intense and brutal.
The use of hand-held camera Kathryn Bigelow famous for did more harm than good in Zero Dark Thirty. Aside from that I often find the documentary style so distracting and also so obtrusive, Bigelow's reliance on this style deprived Zero Dark Thirty from being one of the best-looking movies of the decade. For Greig Fraser, the director of photography, did an amazing job capturing some of the most stunning images I've seen recently.
That being said, this very documentary style gave the movie a somewhat realistic look that only paid off in two situations; the interrogation and torture scenes, and a couple of surprising sequences that are truly heart-pounding. The thing that reminded me a little bit of Villeneuve's Sicario.
Speaking of Sicario, this movie suffers from the same issue I had with Sicario. Which is giving so much attention, nay , priority to the moral aspect of the protagonist. But the major issue is that, Maya, our main character, is an entirely flawed and poorly-written character. Without delving into details, there are central changes happened to the character that are as clichéd as they are contradictory, and very very hard to swallow. Putting the blame on Chastain is a crime I won't commit. As she gave one of her best performances in her career. An Oscar-nominated performance that could have been Oscar-worthy unless it was dedicated to an otherwise terribly-written role that made Chastain herself confused as much as I was.
The editing in general is pretty elegant and masterful. But the sound editing is what stand out for me. This movie has one of the best uses of the J-cut ever!
Nail-biting, nuanced, and thoroughly captivating, Zero Dark Thirty sees Kathryn Bigelow delivering one of the most interesting based-on-true-story movies that is, sadly, lacks a well-wrought, and relatable protagonist.
(7.5/10)