Zero Dark Thirty, a Review

When I was sitting in a theater a few weeks ago and happened to see a preview for Zero Dark Thirty my initial thought was: “Hmmm, a little too soon perhaps?” And I wasn’t just thinking in terms that it might be distasteful to make a film about that subject, i.e. make money by cashing in on an entire nation’s revenge fantasy turned reality turned back into recreated revenge fantasy on the big screen. It was more like: do we have perspective? What can we learn? What’s the point?

 What I mean is that I think it’s hard for people, especially Americans, to have any sort of perspective, personal or historical, on anything that we experience until we can have a buffer of time pass between our present lives and the experience that took place. When we get to Zero Dark Thrity’s climax, the night of Osama Bin Laden’s killing, the date May 2nd 2011 flashes up on the screen and you can’t help but think: “Jesus Christ, that’s a little under two years ago. That’s like flipping yesterday. I’m still processing my feelings about this whole thing!”

The film starts with another date, September 11th, 2001, along with the audio of a 911 worker talking a woman through her last moments on Earth while the twin towers fall. There is no doubt that the moment is powerful, there are no moments from that day that aren’t powerful, but what gives this movie the right to present that moment? What does it want us to learn? I guess it’s just a reminder of how God fucking awful that day is so we can get back into that mind state of fear and hurt and anger and get ready for this crazy ride called “The Search for Osama Bin Laden”.

And what a crazy ride it is. When the CIA isn’t torturing people in creepy secluded locations they’re making stupid mistakes that lead to their members getting murdered by crazed Islamic militants. What the movie ultimately presents as the key ingredients to tracking down Old Gray Beard himself is a series of hunches, thousands of hours of agents trying to spot a guy on a cellphone, and finally, simply following a white SUV. One of the most interesting parts of the movie for me was when the CIA is desperately trying to convince their higher ups that this 8th heat signature they're picking up in a house in Pakistan could very well be the most wanted man in the world. But they can’t prove it because the guy never comes out of his room and when he does he steps behind bushes and other obstructions. All these satellites and technology and you can still hide from the US military behind a bush. Holy cow.

Our protagonist Maya never has any doubts. Maya is played by the overused Jessica Chastain and I understand she’s obsessed and super into tracking down Bin Laden, it’s her thing, but I just don’t really care for her. It’s odd because I’ve watched some of the show Homeland who’s protagonist Carrie is based on the same real life CIA agent as the Maya character in this film, but I like the woman from Homeland, even though she’s a complete nutcase on top of being obsessed. Maybe it’s just Clare Danes performance, she creates a real person that I can like, and hate, and understand, and root for. Chastain’s Maya? Not so much.

When asked if she believes that heat reading in the house is Bin Laden Maya says: “100 percent,” and it’s not really clear why except that she’s weird and obsessed. Even with the evidence at her disposal, which we’ve all been witness to as viewers, I’d say it’s a 70/30 really. She says at one point that she would rather drop a bomb on the house then send a Seal team. What if he wasn’t in there? That’s kind of a bitch move don’t you think?

During a high level briefing someone asks her who she is to which she replies: “I’m the motherfucker that found that house,” which all the men in the room sort of nod solemnly at. I cringed, because it was weird and a little inappropriate frankly.

Maya’s big day finally comes when she and her CIA colleagues send a Seal team in the middle of the night and they begin going through the house room by room in a scene that’s drawn out to milk every moment of tension while we wait for the mastermind of 9/11 to get shot in his jammies. When it happens it’s odd, there’s women and children all around being herded by expertly trained Navy Seals armed to the teeth with hi tech weapons and state of the art gear and you just think, okay, we got him. It took ten years, trillions of dollars, thousand and thousands of lives, but we got him. Now, what does it mean? Did we learn anything?

At this point I want to acknowledge that no matter how many movies are made based on real events, it doesn’t make the events depicted true. I’m not saying I’m on some sort of conspiracy theory trip but here we are presented with scenes of torture, and backroom deals, and shadow operations, and characters made out of combinations of real people, and we don’t know for sure for sure that what we’re watching is true. So if someone makes a film that wants to be cutting edge, in the moment, dealing with the black heart of truth that beats within the central conflict of our time, and the filmmakers themselves don’t even know for sure that it is the God given truth, then what is the point?

There may not be one. We may just be seeing what I had originally sensed from the preview; someone cashing in on a nation’s revenge fantasy, turned real, turned back into fantasy on the big screen. The climax is the killing of a man in a dark room presented as realistically as possible, like a big budget snuff film that we can all get behind. Not really my thing.

Again, that’s just one man’s opinion.

02-19-13