Zero Dark thirty is one of the more honest portrayals of the war on terror. It was blacklisted for the very reason that it did not try to make political statements about the war, and instead told a story, that depending on sources is very true or at least reasonably true, and shot in a near documentary style.
Movie: Zero Dark Thirty
Rating: R
Starring: Jessica Chastain as Maya, Jason Clarke as Dan, Kyle Chandler as Joseph Bradley
Score: 9 out of 10 stars
Family Friendly: 0.5/5 (Brutal violence in the first 23 minutes of the film)
Recommended: Anyone who can stand the first 23 minutes and can enjoy a film that assumes that you are intelligent.
Plot Summery (No Spoilers)
The story of a CIA worker Maya as she follows a lead that leads to the events that lead to the raid that killed Osama Bin Laden.
Plot Summery (Spoilers)
Starting with a brutal CIA interrogation of a Al-Qaeda moneyman in a undisclosed site, the movie first twenty minutes is dedicated to show, not tell, what enhanced interrogation is. The man being questioned is holding back information on a future attack, and they are racing to find this information before the terror attack happens. Then 23 minutes into the movie, the 2004 Kohbar attack happens (where 22 non-Saudi's where shot in a mass shooting). And Maya, who has been following along, presents the idea to tell the isolated terrorist being questioned that the attacked failed and he gave information since they now know what the attack was. Soon the man is telling all that he knows, and he tells of a messenger from Bin Laden named Abu Ahmed. Other detained prisoners say the same thing, that Abu Ahmed is one of, if not the most trusted men to Bin Laden.
Maya, relentless in her pursuit, follows this lead. As attacks are shown, including the London attacks and the Fort Chapman attack (which is the biggest single lost of CIA personnel in history). Soon she thinks she knows who Abu Ahmed really is. And he is traced to Pakistan. A tale of spycraft goes on as this man is pinpointed to a walled off compound in a Major Pakistani city. Unsure if its a drug dealer or Bin Laden, the US sends in a Seal Team, and the last 1/3 of the film is the raid on the compound and the assassination of Bin Laden.
My Thoughts
Okay, I have a lot of thoughts on this film, so I will break it down into the following subjects.
1) Torture
2) Spycraft
3) Mary Sue Maya
4) Political stuff
5) Why you should stop worrying and love this film
Torture
Lets not dance around the issue, the United States of America tortured real and suspected terrorists. No I do not think that Bush needs to stand for war crimes, nor do I think its a nice thing to do to people.
However, causing discomfort, humiliation, Sleep deprivation, and many other forms of torture have been used for centuries, and in 2400, will still be used. Intelligence is not worried about legally admissible evidence, it is about obtaining information that is vitally important to the state. Just as the Military is about using lethal force to carry out the policies of the state. I am not saying we are mistake free, the biggest being not understanding that you never want to give intelligence agencies to do law enforcement for the very reason that the concepts of rights is not in the vocabulary of any intelligence agencies.
The brilliancy of this movie is that it does not condone nor condemn this, it presents it to the public in a matter of fact way that is needed for us in a democratic society to make the choice on where we want to go.
This does not mean that the actions carried out by our country are not horrific. I have friends who think water-boarding is a fun way to baptize terrorists, and others who find the idea of causing discomfort to a non-POW prisoner as a war crime. There is no clean answer to this and anyone who says otherwise is far too sure of the vagaries of the wind in life. My opinion has always been that a good society needs a core of bad men in the shadows to secure the good society from other bad men. Perhaps it is just the Hobbes from my college days that stuck with me.
(Note: I use men in the gender neutral, I am not a social justice worrier who will clutter my poor writing with him/her and so on.)
Spycraft
After that long passage on torture, guess what, this movie really isn't about torture. After 23 minutes it actually goes into the real movie, which is amazing. It is what is rare today, a true spy film that does not depend on bond gadgets or Borne Ubermen. It is a story of a core of Intelligence officers who give up family, a decade of life, and in some cases, their lives on the hunt for a 6'4 Arab who does not have working kidneys.
The movie assumes you are are in the same zip code of intelligence as the very smart officers. No one stops and tells the audience "By the way, ISI is the Pakistani intelligence service", or any other hand-holding. It tells the story and you better strap yourself in as the cards fall and the circle on the target gets smaller and smaller till the moment of the raid.
The Spycraft is at all nodes, ranging from spy satellites, computer databases, questioning, picking up suspects, hunting down a cell phone in a crowded street, to old fashioned gumshoe work. And its played brilliantly, including one of my most enjoyed moments, buying a car.
One of the characters, Dan, has a contact in Kuwait, and needs to get information. The friend points out that Dan is not a real friend, he just asks and never gives in return. Dan accepts that, and says "Do friends buy Lamborghinis for each other?" and proceed to go to the dealership, and let the contact pick out a car. In return he wants just one phone number. It is well played in the movie and shows the pure drive the United States had in hunting down Bin Laden.
Mary Sue Maya
The movie does have a issue, and it is not what most talk about. Maya, played by the amazing actress Jessica Chastain (Who was robbed of awards due to political stuff) carries the movie, this is a movie about her, as she single minded drive to hunt Bin Laden. It is deeply compelling, but there is one major flaw.
She does not make mistakes.
On review it gets old that she is always right, never even makes a minor mistake (even if its a office politics or some other minor flaw) and it does lead to the fact that she is a Mary Sue. This is the only major flaw of this film.
Political stuff
This movie makes a major mistake. It does not make Bush the younger a buffoon, it does not make Obama as the savior. In fact, outside of the late great James Gandolfini playing a obvious Leon Panetta (head of the CIA under Obama) most major political types are never mentioned. It makes no moral mallet over the head that torture is wrong (even if anyone who says that it says torture is a good thing needs to rewatch the film). It almost to the point makes sure that it tells its story as it sees itself, and not what it "should" be.
Thus Hollywood freaking hates this film. It was buried in the awards (not even giving a director a nomination) since it dared not be the standard Hollywood fair that assumes that the person watching needs to be spoon fed and told what to think. It
Why you should stop worrying and love this film
Bin Laden body was still being eaten by fishes when this film went into production. It is noteworthy for three things that will make this film a classic.
1) Old fashioned storytelling.
2) brings up the torture issue while it still fresh, even France took years before they admitted they did what they did in Algeria in movies.
3) People keep talking about strong woman. Perhaps it the female director, but there is more truly strong female characters in this film then you can see in a year of multiplex watching.
And no, I didn't discuss the raid. Why? As every movie goer needs to see this unspoiled as much as seeing the ending of Das Boot.
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