Afghan Pakistan Border Archives - Sean Kelly On Movies

Kathryn Bigelow follows up her Academy Award-winning film The Hurt Locker with another film based on the War on Terror. In the case of Zero Dark Thirty, its a dramatization of the CIA’s search for Osama bin Laden. These events are shown from the point of view of a feisty operative named Maya (Jessica Chastain), who remains obsessively dedicated with tracking down bin Laden over the course of a decade. As a thriller about a decades-long manhunt, I thought that the film was decent, but not extraordinary. I do agree somewhat with the praise that’s being given to Jessica Chastain, even though I don’t really believe that there’s anything super special about the role, other than she is bit of a hothead, who likes to say the f-word a lot. I can’t really talk too much more about the film without my political feelings entering the equation. I will just say that, in some ways, I might have liked the film better if it was a totally fictional story and not all about the “Go America” attitude of finding and killing bin Laden. I’m also not really going to go into the film’s controversial depiction of the torture techniques that were apparently used to interrogate prisoners, since they don’t really factor too much in the film as a whole. Overall, I give Zero Dark Thirty a pass, but I’m not entirely sure if it’s entirely deserving of its Best Picture nod.8 | LIKED IT