The greatest manhunt in history

Zero Dark Thirty

Director: Kathryn Bigelow Screenwriter: Mark Boal Starring: Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Jennifer Ehle, Kyle Chandler, Mark Strong, Joel Edgerton

A lot of nonsense, completely baseless controversy and accusations surround Kathryn Bigelow’s outstanding, heart-thumping epic of a procedural, Zero Dark Thirty. Bigelow has managed to condense ten years of complex, never-ending information and events regarding the hunt for Osama bin Laden into a mere 150-minute running time, whilst keeping the pace healthy, suspense high, and realism intact. Instead the film has generated, and continues to storm up its ever-growing number of detractors and haters, most of whom haven’t even seen the film, criticising Bigelow’s portrayal of the use of torture sanctioned by the government to gather intelligence. Anti-Obama politicians who supposedly have nothing better to do than to attack an innocent film, accuses the narrative of showing political bias towards the Obama administration. Further proof this pathetic ilk never even bothered to watch the film, since Obama is barely mentioned. Oh, and did you know that Bigelow is now a strong advocate for torturing and abusing military captives? That Bigelow had to go so far as to pen an op-ed piece to defend herself and her excellent film is beyond absurd. In fact one of the film’s most distressing parts is its opening, in which a completely blank, black screen is shown, with a background audio feed of various victims of the 9/11 attack in 2001. This makes bin Laden the number one target.

Bigelow bravely opens with a series of scenes where a prisoner is beaten, water-boarded, humiliated and quite literally treated like a dog. Does this promote torture? Of course not. If anything, it strongly stands against it. Again, if the politicians and pundits had taken the time out of their precious schedules to actually see the film, they would realise that. Plus the whole point of the sequence is that torture doesn’t lead to any substantial, usable information. Worn down and beaten to within an inch of his life, Ammar (Reda Kateb) isn’t quite inclined to give up his answers, and his physical and mental deterioration doesn’t exactly help with the process.

Uncomfortable in being a witness to such brutal methods but stern in her overall approach to the most important investigation of her life is Maya (Chastain), a CIA officer who becomes the first-hand operative in hunting down the leader of Al Qaeda starting all the way back in 2003. As an initial freshman still coming to grips with active fieldwork in Pakistan, she isn’t the one in charge immediately. But over the years and with thorough observation, she becomes convinced of a single lead that she believes will lead straight back to bin Laden and his whereabouts. Of course, it sounds too good to be true, very few people are talking, and very little support is shown from the higher-ups. But she intelligently and diligently marches on, pulling out all the stops, gathering the appropriate information, interrogating the long list of suspects whilst also running into trouble of her own.

The 2005 7/7 London bombings and footage from the attack have her more frustrated than ever, she survives the 2008 Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing, she almost gets gunned down by angry terrorists who have made her their target, she loses a close colleague in the 2009 Camp Chapman attack due to bogus intelligence from an unreliable source, but she perseveres. As the film progresses, as it jumps from one year to the next, you see the impact these dead-ends are having on Maya. It is obvious to see that she is very much alone – sure she has co-workers, very talented and reliable ones. Jennifer Ehle excels even in her relatively brief role as the vibrant Jessica genuinely concerned for Maya’s welfare, Jason Clarke is the unflinching, rugged Dan who leads a lot of the enhanced interrogations, whose techniques Maya even learns and employs herself when times get tough. Dan also develops into something more interesting in the second half of the film, suiting up to work in Washington, closer to the politics away from the frontline. But ultimately we see her isolated, with very little connection, if at all, to the outside world, outside her office, as she spends a decade looking for the world’s most wanted man.

With someone like Chastain, who has given so many versatile performances over the last couple of years that one can only look forward to what comes next for this amazingly gifted actress (up next is the Guillermo del Toro-produced horror movie Mama), the film finds itself a strong and confident leader, one who doesn’t let anyone undermine her steely conviction. “I’m the motherfucker that found this place, sir,” she says point-blank to the Director of the CIA, a coldly delivered line. A U.S. Navy SEAL Team Leader (Joel Edgerton) points to Maya, and cites “her confidence” as the reason why he believes that bin Laden is hiding out in a suburban compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. And by the time you reach the finale, you will have every bit of faith in Maya, with Chastain well deservedly on her way to Oscar glory. “I’m going to smoke everyone involved in this op and then I’m going to kill Osama bin Laden” is another classic line of dialogue that will have you cheering her on.

Closing the film is the 30-minute long action footage, seen mostly through the eyes of the Navy SEALs themselves with their hi-tech visual kit, carrying out a relatively stealthy assault on the compound. In an operation like this, there cannot be neat, tidy camera angles or loud, big-scale shootings, which is exactly what is done here, with hardly any use of a music score, purely relying on what is shown on the screen, nothing less, nothing more.

For a film with an ending we all know well, and a lengthy, wordy process that comes before it, Bigelow has managed to create an insanely suspenseful piece of work with heightened realism and her focus in all the right places. Perhaps adding to the fascination and interest is the actual detail of how everything unfolded, and the little strands here and there that made all of this possible. So bin Laden was killed, but what were the actual events that came before that? And that is where Bigelow’s keen eye for specific facts becomes handy. Zero Dark Thirty is as much about bin Laden as it is about Maya, and the plot revolves around the one woman’s quest to bring down the villain. It’s about the effect this manhunt has on her, her moral compass, her world, and her relentless passion for doing what she deems right. As for the negative attacks, one can only hope they work as free publicity for the film in general.