Movie Review: Zero Dark Thirty

Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

A chronicle of the decade-long hunt for al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden after the September 2001 attacks, and his death at the hands of the Navy S.E.A.L. Team 6 in May 2011.  Short synopsis of Zero Dark Thirty taken from IMDb.com 

There isn't too much I can say about Zero Dark Thirty.  It is dark, both figuratively and literally.  The scenes at the end especially, the ones most people paid their ticket to see, are very hard to see.  I refer to the climactic scenes in which the U.S. troops infiltrate the Bin Laden compound.  We cut back and forth between the green glow of night vision from the Navy SEALS point of views, and the near blackness of night time operations in Pakistan, where the compound was located.  Maybe in the theater it was easier to see the action, but on my old Sony Trinitron TV (circa early 2000s, back when we had money and an awesomely good credit score), it was flashes of movement on an otherwise black screen.  The only way I could be sure things were actually going on, and thus be sure the filmmaker hadn't run out of money and just stuck a long section of black electrical tape - with occasional chalk smudges on it - in place of actual celluloid, was the audio portion.  There is the terse radio chatter of the various elements of the team who infiltrated the compound, the buzz/whine of helicopters flying overhead, and the sounds of hurried boots moving from place to place.

Please note: I will be describing the events as they transpired, and those events are not pretty.  I don't tell them in any attempt to glorify them, but the details given are still fairly graphic, and so if you wish to skip ahead two paragraphs and catch up there, you won't miss too much.

If you've read anything about how the operation went down (possibly including No Easy Day, which I have reviewed previously), you know the basics.  There is a brief shoot-out between one of the men living at the Bin Laden compound and the SEALs, which ended with the terrorist getting shot through the door he was firing blindly through.  Another one of Bin Laden's compatriots was hiding in a stairwell in an ambush position, but the quick-thinking of the SEAL in lead position saved lives.  Using an educated hunch, the SEAL called out the man's name.  When the guy responded by poking his head around, he was promptly shot.

Another man was shot in his room, and then his wife as well, who threw herself over the fallen terrorist's body.  I don't recall this from No Easy Day, though it may have been mentioned.  And then Bin Laden, last of all, was caught on the top level of the house, and shot in the side of the head.  His end was not noble or glorious in any way.  The corpse was collected after his immediate family was briefly interrogated to assure who it was that was laying dead on the floor.

Terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden.  Bin Laden led what has been called the largest manhunt in history between the September 11th attacks and his eventual death, as portrayed in the film, in 2011. / Source: huffingtonpost.com

There is nothing sexy or glamorous about these scenes.  Not to me, anyway.  Others might "get off" on it.  I did not.  I didn't see it as being intended for hyper-military nuts or adrenaline junkies.  Sure, the scenes are tense, and if I didn't know how it all happened from previous reading, it may have been much more edge-of-my-seat.  But for me, the whole thing was kinda sad. 

The movie does this sadness justice.  Let me explain.  The film opens with a black screen (like I said, the film has lots of darkness).  The audio you get is from the Sept 11th 911 emergency services tapes and also news clips of the day.  The sound of actual people dying is present.  It is a punch to the gut, and makes me a bit teary eyed even as I think about it now.  In fact, some people might feel a bit offended about it.  These aren't actors, as far as I am aware.  These are innocent men and women whose lives were cut short by brutal acts of terrorism.  The "realness" of it is unapologetic.

Then the film gets rolling by focusing on Maya, a CIA field agent who spends her entire young life working the hunt for Bin Laden.  We go straight to an interrogation site in Afghanistan, where a CIA man is working over a prisoner.  You get to see water boarding, which to put mildly, is disturbing.  Maya is thrown into this world, but even though she is young and inexperienced, there is steel inside her that will show through in the years to come.  This film depicts the events of a number of years, and the aforementioned steeliness of Maya, as the film moves from time point to time point in the hunt for Bin Laden's couriers, and thus, Bin Laden himself.

Jessica Chastain in her role as Maya.  Chastain's performance is what truly sets Zero Dark Thirty apart. / Source: collider.com

Maya grows thinner and harder as time passes.  She sees the fateful days of "Gitmo" and Abu Graib, and the aftermath when they are closed down by the new administration.  She loses friends to terrorist attacks (a fateful strike by a car bomber - that was largely off the radar back here at home for most Americans - takes out a close friend of Maya's).  Maya was there when the Marriott was bombed in 2008.  And she saw the man who "showed her the ropes," both that first day in Afghanistan and then for years to come, break down from so long a time of doing monstrous things.  It is unflinching traumatic.

In the end, after cell phone triangulation and a good deal of plain old hard work - and a major leap of faith by CIA leadership in Washington - Bin Laden's compound was selected for attack by the National Command Authority.  And this leads back where this review began.  The whole experience is dark and - in many ways - somber.

The young woman, Jessica Chastain, who played Maya, deserved an Academy Award.  Via a quick Google search, I see that she did not get it, and that there is some controversy over the movie (see this article).  You can feel the actress's seeming softness when the film starts out.  She is fit and trim, but obviously fresh from the good shores of the United States.  But during her time in-country, she grows thinner, and her bones showing more prominently in her face through the course of the film.  And Maya's dedicated, no-nonsense, and relentless pursuit of the leads that eventually brought Bin Laden into the crosshairs of Special Forces gunsights' is completely believable.  How much this person is based on her real life counter-part is a matter of speculation on my part (I don't know, as I have only heard the Spec Ops side of the coin until seeing this film), but if she is a composite, she is awfully believable as one.

U.S. Navy SEALs infiltrating Bin Laden's compound after exiting their stealthed-up Blackhawk.  / Source: beyondhollywood.com

The only real part of the film that I was both a bit incredulous on, and also applauded for its nice technical touches, was the presence of the supposed "stealth helicopters."  While I don't doubt there are such things in the U.S. inventory, I also could easily see this part being an internet rumor gone nuts.  Some conspiracy theorist hyping a personal soapbox, instead of hard fact.  The story I heard was that it was regular old Blackhawks (probably the better equipped Spec Ops versions, but still not full-on stealthy stuff).  Of course, then again, all the money that was dropped into the cancelled RAH-66 Commanche project couldn't have just gone nowhere.  That stealth attack/scout copter went hugely over-budget before being killed, without a viable product ever making it into the field.  I think this was in the early 2000s.  But you don't think for a minute that all that money bought nothing, do you?  At least some things were learned in the process, and making a low-down stealthy transport copter (strictly on the "black" side) wouldn't be much of a stretch, especially if they based this hypothetical craft on existing hardware, like a Blackhawk. 

This leads to my commendations of the filmmakers.  The choppers they used, and dressed up for the occasion, were first rate efforts.  I know this perpetuates the idea of stealth copters that may or may not be real, but just the same, it does it well.  Nothing flimsy about these props; you can almost feel the authenticity of them.  Kudos to the prop shop for rigging these birds up.

As for Zero Dark Thirty itself, as I have alluded to, it’s a tour-de-force, and worth the Redbox price of a rental (by the time this review is released, I'm sure it will probably be out of Redbox's rotation for some while, but you see my intent just the same).  It is graphically violent, with blunt and coarse language and situations inappropriate for immature viewers.  Don't show this one to your kids is all I'm saying.  But for adults who are interested in a perspective - albeit a Hollywood-ized one - of the Bin Laden hunt and eventual termination, this is a good way to go.  Worth my buck and a quarter or so, for sure.

The parting comment:



Source: LOLSnaps.com

To lighten the mood a bit, I decided to include this.  Don't ya just love the silliness of anime?