Momentous

Rating: 9/10 (16 May 2013)

It is inevitable with movies such as "Zero Dark Thirty" to wonder how accurate the portrayal of historical (albeit recent) events can be. Most of us who lived through those times will be in no doubt that Osama Bin Laden was clearly labelled "US Public Enemy No. 1"
Yet this movie revolves around one woman's determination ("Maya" played by Jessica Chastain) to find this vindictive and reclusive figure-head, often forced to clash with her bosses to get her own way, as she closes in on her target.
Whether or not the portrayal is accurate it is clear that a lot of hard graft, and determined (if somewhat questionable) interrogations- plus one vital piece of previously overlooked intelligence – went in to locating the Al Qaeda No.1.
And whilst it has to be said that the CIA operatives who died at a supposed meeting with an informant were naïve in the extreme, their deaths in action can be considered no less a sacrifice than all those innocent souls whose lives have been truncated by these dangerous zealots without any real cause.
The ambivalent security situation in Pakistan is evident as three terrorists armed with sub-machine guns rake Maya's car (which luckily for her is modified with bullet-proof features) with bullets in broad daylight.
The eventual raid on the Bin Laden household is clinical and bloody – with enough intelligence captured that the CIA must still be poring over it even now.
This movie captures the powder keg that is Pakistan, the painstaking work that went into locating Bin Laden, the crucial debates in the President's office on percentages of probability that it was Bin Laden's residence (Maya was always 100% convinced), and the professionalism and discipline of the military as they planned and carried out what was, and remains, a daring military raid on foreign soil.
It does it though without fanfare or embellishment. It depicts the events but does not seek to influence, and that is what makes this a truly great movie – it is made by those who understand that it depicts one of the most momentous events of the 21st century, an event that exorcised the demons of an entire generation.
No further dramatization is required.