by Kathryn Bigelow
with Jessica Chastain, Joel Edgerton and Chris Pratt
When the final credits started to roll I was still flummoxed by the very last shot, probably the most meaningful and intense of the whole film. I was confused because after almost three hours, one single wordless shot made the entire movie different. It made it deep, dark, pessimistic, empty. The exact opposite of what had happened until then.
Maya is a CIA agent who has been working on Osama Bil Laden for the past 12 years of her life. She is the one pulling the strings together for the final hunt and after disappointments and deaths, the day has finally come.
Kathryn Bigelow goes back to the war genre after The Hurt Locker, but this time the controversy the movie created was enough for the marketing campaign. Real tortures, real truth, real events, real actions etc. the thing is that Zero Dark Thirty is not a documentary. Yes, it is based on first-hand documents, but at the end of the day it is a movie, it is fiction. It is shot in India, and not Pakistan, there are goofs, there are special effects, there are actors. What we should focus on is how good or bad the movie is.
The first half is hard to follow, a bit chaotic, many characters, names, jumps in time, but most of all there is no knowledge of any main figure. Jessica Chastain is very well cast, and her sharp face is suitable for a role that requires hard features as well as a tough character. Zero Dark Thirty is no Act of Valor, it’s not an action movie, it’s more about strategy, waiting, scheming and finally striking. The sequence of the final showdown is very well crafted, a suspenseful and expert mix of hand-held camera work, precise violence, subtle special effects and effective editing. 25 minutes everyone was waiting for, but definitely not worth all the hype. Half-disappointing and half-boring, Zero Dark Thirty deserves credit for its talented director and female protagonist, who both made it very raw, gritty and harsh, but the much hype, criticisms, and controversy elevated it higher than where it should be.
