Zero Dark Thirty: One of the Best Films of the Year
Zero Dark Thirty marks a cinematic breakthrough into the realm of journalism. Just a year and a half after the Navy SEAL assault that brought Osama bin Laden’s life to a bloody conclusion, The Hurt Locker director Kathryn Bigelow has brought the story to the screen, using extensive research and aid from the White House. President Obama evidently thought this film, which has a gripping documentary feel, would be released before the election and make him look good, but it turns out he was wrong on both counts. Zero Dark Thirty (military slang for the wee hours of the morning when the attack took place) makes Obama appear somewhere between irrelevant and counterproductive in the intelligence mission that led to Bin Laden’s demise.
Young star Jessica Chastain, who last year got an Oscar nomination for The Help, gives another awards-caliber performance as a 30-year-old CIA agent named Maya who has spent 12 years tracking Bin Laden, ever since she was recruited out of high school. At CIA black sites in Pakistan and Afghanistan, she actively participates in brutal interrogation techniques including forced sleep deprivation, beatings and waterboarding. These procedures are shown as essential to learning of the existence of a courier, Abu Ahmed, whose trail would eventually lead to Bin Laden’s fortress-like lair in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
President Obama is referred to obliquely as someone who demands factual certainty (without which, it is implied, he won’t give the go-ahead for the assault, which is worrisome enough) but doesn’t appear in the film except in a clip from a real-life news program. In the clip, Obama is shown disavowing torture, which would seem to pose a major obstacle to the CIA agents watching him on television. They know too well that meddling from politicians who have no idea how difficult it is to obtain intelligence from career terrorists could easily nullify their efforts. Obama comes off looking like a weak, oblivious fool who places his own preening above the national interest. Like I said: This movie is practically a documentary.
“The Hurt Locker” is crap. I hope this one’s better.
I have to agree about “The Hurt Locker”. The fact that it was not yet-another obvious hit piece on our military was enough to garner it praise from conservative quarters but otherwise…
looking up the viewer’s comments for the movie on IMDB.com shows real-life EOD veterans lining up to tear it apart. The hero is portrayed as an adrenaline-junkie borderline-nutcase who needlessly endangers his men. Guess that shows how easily pleased we are.
I read “No Easy Day” and the author gives the real-life “Maya” her due. However, she was recruited out of college not high school and is a few years older than the actress who portrays her.
From the description in “Mark Owen”‘s book I think Bigelow made a mistake in giving her Rambo-like lines. In the book she’s tough AND female and the SEALs display a brotherly affection for her when she can’t suppress a weepy, emotional letdown when the object of her Ahab-like obsession is finally harpooned and later, on the carrier, when she finally gazes upon his corpse.
Give Kathryn Bigelow half a point here. She accepted Obammy’s thirty pieces of silver but did not give him what he expected in return. I’m betting that she calculated she’d put more butts-in-seats over the long-term if she maintained her integrity and didn’t become just another Leftist Hollywood tool.
I’ll wager she’s made quite a few friends in recent years who are a hell of a lot more interesting than the usual Hollywood crowd.
see my comment above.
I disagree, the Hurt Locker was a good movie, it just wasn’t realistic. Being realistic is not what movies are all about. If that was the criteria, the movie business would fail.
Sounds good. I’m going to have to watch this. Maybe even at the theater.
Yeah, In real life they killed an actor too. Bin Laden was long gone.
Now Obama runs Alkaida.
Let’s remember that the doctor who helped us get Bin Laden is in prison in Pakistan for helping us, apparently being tortured (in the looser sense of the term). Pretty disgusting that Americans are getting a vicarious thrill (and Hollywood is making money and Obama is getting his ego stroked) while he’s rotting in jail.
Yup, no one ever got hurt by the Obama administration leaks to the media.
JeremyR,
If I were in a situation with bad guys all around, and found out that Obama wanted to help me, I would probably run away screaming.
So, Bigelow’s angle is the CIA agent, huh. Well Mark Owen (pseudonym) said in his book No Easy Day that she’d been recruited out of college, not High School. He also said she had no desire to see Bin Laden’s dead corpse, but the SEALs slowly coaxed her over to give her a sense of accomplishment and she cried when she saw it because she’d never experienced death. He also said she was clearly an analyst, he talked about her expensive shoes and outfits. Sounds like a far cry from Rambo Maya.
Well, yes, but admitting that the real Maya was no Rambo would destroy the “narrative” that wymyn do all the really tough stuff these days, the Seals being merely passive agents whose heads are chewed off when Maya has sex with them after their mission is completed.
This could be the best or worst film of the year. It doesn’t matter to me. It smacks of arrogance and patronizing from the Commander in Chief. That would be the person responsible for the well being of our troops, not the least of which include our special forces guys. Somehow, we have lost more spec ops troops under this total lackey than what took place in conventional warfare, depending upon how you check the clock. I am still scratching my head from when our elected lackey felt compelled to show up on site with these “men of men”, taking photo ops of all things!! Talk about historic firsts. Then, months later, we lose an entire helicopter full of many of these guys moving to an area when it was questionable as to why they were even there!!! This is all very fresh in my mind and I get the distinct impression that our lackey in chief is such a coward that he would even show up in the same room with these guys trying to take credit for whatever happened to Obama Osama… whatever the perp’s name was. This movie should never have been made; I did not like the tone and underlying message of “The Hurt Locker”, and I’m sure this movie has no business being on the big screen. God bless our guys, and God bless all those involved with SEAL teams.
Outstanding! May I also add that since Dear Leader was selected our leader, the SEALS have gone from anonimity to the talk of the town. Which has removed one of their most precious assets: being unknown in how they operate.
Regarding the loss of 32 Spec Ops guys, one has to wonder at the timing, location and circumstance of the hit. I would like to see the after-action report on that “man-caused disaster.”
This film is a piece of Obama propaganda with redeaming value. Odd how they don’t seam to care if it will offend the lunatic muslims.
I probably won’t see this fiction… might have been more interesting if they’d done something like ‘Capricorn One’… you know, it was all a FAKE… didn’t really happen movie.
Considering how removed from reality that Hurt Locker was from real EOD, one shouldn’t take this movie too literally.
“Obama comes off looking like a weak, oblivious fool who places his own preening above the national interest. Like I said: This movie is practically a documentary.”
That’s a surprising observation and makes me interested in seeing a movie I expected would be nothing more than Obama propaganda. Might that also be the reason the planned release of the movie was pushed back until after the election? I seem to remember reading that there was a WH screening; maybe Obama and his handlers were dismayed at the portrayal of the President and exerted some muscle to make sure the public didn’t see the film until after November 6th.
One of the commentators speculated that the director took Obama’s thirty pieces of silver but didn’t deliver the requested puff piece. There’s a delicious irony in that, if true.
TORTURE: Generals Patton and Marshall were waterboarded. It was a hazing thing in their VMI fraternity.
movie should have been called “Zero Dark Tooth Fairy”
a total crock pack of lies. pure Barry Soetoro propaganda
Bin Laden bin dead since 2001
“Usama bin Laden has died a peaceful death due to an untreated lung complication, the Pakistan Observer reported, citing a Taliban leader who allegedly attended the funeral of the Al Qaeda leader.”
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,41576,00.html#ixzz2FjqEdMKO
Oh sure. Never mind that the guy made many videos relating to current topics long after that date, even referring to the Lord of the Flies, Obama, himself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Videos_and_audio_recordings_of_Osama_bin_Laden
Just what colors are the binary stars in your planet’s system??
Hey Anna,
You must live in the binary colored stars planet system ‘GULLIBLE’ if you
believe that obama BS. Go to the link you give and read each one. They tell
a very obvious story for anyone with a brain. It’s all CIA phony baloney. Not
one believable video.
nonsense
What evidence did maobama have that he got osama? Answer – ZERO – Truth really
sucks, don’t it Grayman.
Yep. And Red Dawn accurately documented that time a bunch of kids defended america from the soviets.
And FireFox was totally accurate too.