It's like Homeland was made into a movie

Rating: 8/10 (3 March 2013)

Kathryn Bigelow again tries to depict the realities of modern warfare against terrorism with this film that looks remarkably like a movie adaptation of Homeland. The same feisty female CIA agent that is "her against the world", the same obsession with her target, the same great cast placed in somewhat insignificant roles to make her shine in her role. Is it something more than that, though? Barely.
On the other hand it is difficult to tell this story and also make it interesting without forgoing some of the realities in it. CIA work is a thorough, heart wrenching and, most of the time, boring job. The movie is likewise in its depictions of torture in the hands of Americans, numerous bureaucratic obstacles before action is even considered and the many discussions. As an idea, the operation for the capture or killing of UBL was not started for more than 100 days from the moment they suspected where he was.
Bigelow does well to not go into a political direction or another. You don't feel the movie accusatory against the War against Terror, nor do you feel it apologetic towards the less politically correct actions of Americans in the conflict. It feels real and I certainly hope it is based on facts. That's why this is not a very dramatic movie, nor has it a lot of military action, it is almost a documentary.
Bottom line: As a depiction of facts, a great job; as a movie, a little boring. And I also don't know about the veracity of the information Bigelow received as source material.
As for what happened in the film, the operation itself felt weird to me. They go there to kill bin Laden. Just kill him. Not detain, not prosecute, not torture and interrogate. Bin Laden himself, in the midst of an obvious American attack, doesn't blow up the entire compound, or at least himself, he just sits tight and waits for it all to end. He could have just hidden somewhere in a compartment and the Americans would never have had the time to do a proper search. None of that happened.
One phrase in the film also left me wondering. Apparently, the reasoning behind sending the team in the house in the first place was to ascertain that bin Laden really was there. Otherwise they would have just thrown in a bomb. Really? Is that justice? It's seems like American Fatwa to me. And this is the most terrifying thing to me, how a few bombs and terror threats have sand blasted away the patina of civilization from the American behavior and showed the angry, barbaric desire to dehumanize and destroy their enemy, just like the people they are fighting. I think that is the meaning of the last scene: the girl, having reached her target, cries for her own lost humanity.