2013: The Year in Film: "Zero Dark Thirty" Review

Kathryn Bigelow, a director who had no-doubt action movie bona fides, shocked the world with "The Hurt Locker", a brutal military thriller that took the Oscars by storm three years ago. Established as one of the few in Hollywood who can handle politically explosive issues in an even-handed and honest way, that made her a no-brained to handle the potentially controversial story of the CIA's hunt for Osama Bin Laden leading up to his death in May 2011. This flick rested on potentially contentious ground, being released amidst a highly charged partisan political climate and being seen as potentially bolstering an incumbent president. In addition, the flick featured unprecedented access by the film crew to sources linked to the mission itself, promising as real a look at the largest manhunt in human history as possible from a major studio picture.

The film focuses on a small, elite group of CIA operatives tasked with finding the world's most notorious and wanted man, Usama Bin Laden, following 9/11. The trail gets hot and cold through multiple wars, but one agent stays the course - Maya. (played masterfully by Jessica Chastain) Of course, we all know the ultimate ending, so the question becomes whether or not the film succeeds in providing the necessary tension and intrigue to justify its lengthy runtime. No worries, the answer is a resounding "yes".

The Good: The cast, especially the leads, are great. Chastain, whether or not she ultimately wins Oscar, is a revelation. She does the bulk of the lifting here, and bears the pressure and determination of the decade-long hunt for a ghost masterfully. Jason Clarke (minor boy), Kyle "Coach Taylor" Chandler, Mark Strong, Joel Eddelston and others flesh out the cast and are all extremely effective, especially Clarke, but make no mistake, this is Chastain's show. By centering on her character the film puts a human face on the manhunt, and as we see Maya struggle against forces working against her the chase takes on real stakes. The plot moves crisply, effectively moving through the years and from Pakistan to Afghanistan to CIA black sites to Washington DC in a way that ramps up the intrigue and keeps things interesting while never feeling jumbled or confusing. This is no small feat. The cinematography and filmmaking is, quite simply, near-perfect. The film feels hyper-real, the brief scenes of punctuated action are simply brutal and the final raid on Bin Laden's compound is one of the more suspenseful scenes I've seen in recent year. Considering we all know what happened, that's obviously an impressive performance. The script is filled with enough insider language and jargon that you (or I, at least) feel like an insider without it being so dense that the goings-on are incomprehensible. Bigelow again successfully walks that line of showing without judging or commenting, choosing to let the film speak for itself. This is the treatment this story deserves. A partisan hack could have mangled it and made something fleeting, instead Bigelow is clearly devoted to creating a quality product, and it shows.

The Bad: there is very little bad here. One criticism I have is that the film, with its massive cast, made some questionable choices. I love Chris Pratt as much as anyone and respect Mark Duplass, but casting them as a Navy SEAL and CIA analyst seem questionable at best. Another criticism is that the film by and large entirely glosses over the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts. While I understand that it has a mission, to tell the story of the Bin Laden manhunt, the fact that those conflicts consumed countless resources that could have been used to crush Al Qaeda and Bin Laden seems highly relevant.

In all, this is an important film. It's masterfully crafted, alternately funny, brutal, but always honest, and features a near-perfect performance at its heart. From the African embassy attacks in 1998 (really, you could argue starting with the first WTC bombing in 1993) through his death in 2011, Bin Laden was US public enemy #1. The triumph of a small group of Americans is a story that's simply essential. I've started calling it "The Social Network" for geo-politics.  It's a character-driven thriller with stakes that would reverberate worldwide. Far from being a jingoistic rah-rah piece it's an important piece of social commentary. If you remember 9/11 and the war on terror, see this movie. If you don't, you should see this movie even more. See this movie, it's the best of 2012, plain and simple. This is filmmaking at its finest.

9.5/10.

[As an aside, I'd like to comment on the silly contention that the film condones torture that's been circulating among some. Plain and simple, this film pursues no political agenda. It passes on innumerable opportunities to score points with one side or the other, pursuing a cold, almost documentarian touch over more emotional or exploitative options. It depicts torture because torture happened. Pretending it didn't would be doing the story a disservice. If anything, the film condemns violence as brutal and soul-sucking for all parties involved.]