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'Zero Dark Thirty' provides tense experience
Jessica Chastain stars as Maya, a dedicated CIA agent, in "Zero Dark Thirty." Photo courtesy of Columbia Pictures.
By Anthony Tosie, atosie@starlocalnews.com
The general premise behind "Zero Dark Thirty" is mostly known. After years of searching for Osama bin Laden, U.S. agents unexpectedly located and assassinated the al-Quida leader in 2011 following confusion regarding his whereabouts.
Despite having been played out in newspapers and across television sets, however, director Kathyn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal (the team behind "The Hurt Locker," which won both Academy Awards in their respective categories two years ago) have crafted a film that's engrossing throughout and takes viewers to parts of the hunt for bin Laden not revealed in media reports.
Maya (played by Jessica Chastain) fights the accepted belief among her fellow CIA agents that bin Laden is hiding in mountain caves, instead insisting the terrorist leader is hiding in plain sight somewhere in Pakistan.
Maya's boss, Joseph Bradley (Kyle Chandler), implores her to similarly give up her search for bin Laden and work on preventing further terrorist attacks in the U.S., but the agent refuses to abandon what she believes to be solid intelligence.
Chastain gives a strong performance in this regard; the film is essentially a tour de force for the actress, who exemplifies an agent who's become single-minded -- to the point of obsession -- with finding the terrorist leader and bringing him to justice. Supporting characters are largely limited to little screen time while Maya's intelligence work serves as the central focus.
The film has come under fire for depicting the torture of terrorists for intelligence on bin Laden, with some U.S. senators calling it "pro-torture," but these scenes serve a purpose. They illustrate how information was obtained -- by the former CIA director's admission, no less -- prior to the use of different tactics, and they are effective in showing the uncompromising nature of Maya's work.
While the film is gripping through its entire 157 minutes, it isn't without its flaws. Character development, for instance, is almost nonexistent -- the characters have almost no back story, and the plot's focus on Maya sometimes seems too constricting a view.
Another issue is the fact that the film attempts to tackle difficult topics, such as the aforementioned torture scenes, without delving into any sort of discussion of the subject matter itself. While I don't expect to be lectured by films, whether torture successfully led to new intelligence was surely a topic that was debated between the White House and CIA, so why not illustrate that in the film?
"Zero Dark Thirty" could have taken the easy route of merely depicting what's already been reported on bin Laden's assassination, but instead it delves deeper than that. Some scenes present well-known events, such as the crash of a secret U.S. helicopter in the mission that led to bin Laden's death, but the background work that led to those events are also shown.
As with any good film, "Zero Dark Thirty" will be talked about by audiences well after the credits roll. Maybe not for the intelligent debate it provokes, but because it serves as a thrilling experience provides a glimpse into the lesser-discussed aspects of the search for Osama bin Laden.
4 out of 5 stars
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