Everyone knows how Zero Dark Thirty ends, with seal team six killing Osama Bin Laden. However, it is the events that lead up to this fantastic event that really make the movie.
The film begins with the heart-wrenching sounds of 9/11 victims calling out for help, or calling their families to say that they love them. This effectively desensitizes the audience for what comes next—twenty minutes of grisly torture scenes, which create an over-all feeling of discomfort within the theater.
The movie spans out primarily from the beginning of the Iraq War, until 2011, following Maya, a CIA officer, as she is assigned to the task of interrogating Saudi terrorists for information about Osama Bin Laden.
The whole film is a complex game of cat-and-mouse, only with a massively predictable outcome. Despite this, Academy Award winning director Kathryn Bigelow manages to keep our blood pressure nice and high throughout most of the movie.
One particular short-coming of Zero Dark Thirty was it’s incredibly fast-pace plot, which is usually a positive, but when you’re trying to remember dozens of foreign names and places, as well as their importance, things can get complicated. Language plays a huge role in this movie, that is, if you’re comfortable hearing the F-bomb every few minutes.
Despite these minor flaws, overall Zero Dark Thirty is a compelling film with great character development. At the very end of the movie Jessica Chastain really secures her place as a serious actor, and her adaptation of her role really comes into play.
Zero Dark Thirty is surrounded by controversy because of it’s incredibly graphic nature, and information. Many people are upset because of its pro-torture stance, and the allegation that the producers allegedly obtained improper access to classified material from the U.S. government.
Despite this, the movie has been nominated for and also won several awards. In total the film was nominated for five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actress, and Best Original Screenplay. Zero Dark Thirty was also nominated for four Golden Globes including Best Motion Picture-Drama, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and Best Actress, which Chastain won.
Zero Dark Thirty was a riveting film that deserves its various acclamations, and will be remembered for years to come.
