Oct 11, 2012 Zero Dark Thirty reunites the Oscar(R) winning team of director-producer Kathryn Bigelow and writer-producer Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker) for the story of history's greatest manhunt for the world's. Rent Zero Dark Thirty (2012) starring Jessica Chastain and Jason Clarke on DVD and Blu-ray. Get unlimited DVD Movies & TV Shows delivered to your door with no late fees, ever. Fast, free delivery. One month free trial!
That's a very grudging three stars, because — like Flight — there's more to chew on than I initially realized, but I still think it's kind of a crappy movie. Let me count the ways:1) The first third in particular wore me down. I exceedingly dislike the way Bigelow transforms 7/7, the 2008 Islamabad Marriott bombing and the bombing of Camp Chapman into standard suspense setpieces (when will that explosive go off?). The latter particularly rubbed the wrong way: the longer Bigelow keeps intercutting between Maya's chat window and the guilelessly optimistic CIA officials awaiting their big break is downright sadistic. (It was just another gchat session UNTIL.) Is there intent here to make the viewer tensely ever-expectant of.
I feel deeply conflicted by this film. While I admire its scope I have great difficulties with the way it presents it, both in content and in cinematic quality.Let me start by saying that Bigelow should earn nothing but respect for taking on such an ambitious project. I am not a big fan of hers as a director (and she betrays here weaknesses here as well), but I always admire artists who dare to push the boat out a bit further than the rest or take on a challenge with both hands.Chronicling a decade long man-hunt for the world's public enemy number one is no small task. Mark Boal's script comes across as fastidiously researched, giving us a. Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow’s controversial drama about the ten-year manhunt for Osama bin Laden, comes with more baggage than most movies. It was released a mere year after the culmination of the investigation that finished with bin Laden being killed in Pakistan.
The film has been plagued by vocal detractors criticising its stance on torture whilst the war on terror still remains a contentious subject for politicians and public alike. It is therefore a film that is impossible to evaluate on its own merits as it is intrinsically linked to the politics of our age.Bigelow and writer-producer, Mark Boal, smartly navigate this perilous minefield delivering a tense thriller and investigative drama that follows one CIA officer’s obsessive quest. 'we don't know what we don't know'what the fuck does that mean?'
Still perhaps the finest example of the dirty handheld 'realism' as it serves bigelow's blurring of firsthand details, dates, facts, events, and timelines into a foreground of abstract obscurity and moral erosion. The hazy information is being fed, the players are locked in knowingly/willingly or not (reduced to images in time and data on screens), the gears are turning, the war machine is self-sustaining now. Good luck finding closure in it. For 'god and country'.
Parents need to know that Zero Dark Thirty is a combination war movie, thriller, and docudrama about the intense, years-long hunt for Osama bin Laden following the 9/11 attacks, from the filmmakers behind. Perhaps the movie's most controversial element is its depiction of 'waterboarding' and torturing prisoners for information. The movie shows this process as simultaneously effective and repellent.
Overall, violence is strong - not just in the torture sequences, but also in various other gun/shooting sequences, with dead bodies and lots of blood. But because the violence encourages interpretation and isn't just gratuitous, older teens should be able to handle it within the movie's context as an intelligent, complex story that's sure to inspire passionate discussion. Language is strong, with uses of 'f-k' and 's-t,' as well as sexual innuendo and some partial, nonsexual nudity. Characters are often seen smoking cigarettes or drinking in a background way. Following the 9/11 attacks on the United States, a CIA agent named Maya steps up the hunt for international terrorist Osama bin Laden. She witnesses the torture and 'waterboarding' of one of bin Laden's underlings (possibly a nephew).
And, over the next decade, the single-minded Maya follows many dead leads, loses many colleagues, and witnesses some devastating terrorist attacks. Yet even in her most painful defeats, she rarely wavers. She believes she has been spared from death to finish the job. Finally, she comes up with some fuzzy, tentative information as to where bin Laden may be hiding and, based on not much more than a strong hunch, launches her final attack. Another filmmaker might have turned this material into either an exciting thriller or a serious condemnation of the whole brutal affair; director does both at the same time. Her unique insight into violence has been the hallmark of her entire remarkable career, and ZERO DARK THIRTY is perhaps the most complex and ambitious of all her films to date.Bigelow's steadfastly apolitical movie asks the audience to consider both the usefulness and the horror of 'waterboarding,' both before and after it's outlawed.
But that controversial element is only a small part of the greater whole. The movie follows the outline of a true-crime procedural, but with many more dead ends than successes, it takes on a certain tragic tone. Bigelow includes little moments of rest and pause to humanize and refocus her heroine. Then, the film's final 40-minute attack sequence - and its aftermath - is a tour de force.
Zero Dark Thirty is a towering achievement.Families can talk about Zero Dark Thirty's. What's the impact of the torture scenes? How are they different from the climactic invasion sequence? From the opening depiction of 9/11?
How does the movie challenge viewers to think about all these different forms of violence?.What keeps Maya doing this job - hunting for little clues that may lead to Osama bin Laden - for so many years? Is she worth rooting for?.How can Zero Dark Thirty be labeled? How would you describe it to your friends? Is a movie that's difficult to label better than one that's easy to label?