Zero Dark Thirty

It has been established, it wasn't torture or, quoting that dishonest euphemism, "enhanced interrogation" that took the intelligence community to Bin Laden. So, how is it possible that this film by intelligent people would perpetrate that lie? The film is technically brilliant but it becomes tedious because, naturally, we know the ending. The other strange fact is the casting of Jessica Chastain. She seems elsewhere, emotionally and otherwise. I couldn't connect with her, I was far too aware of the "acting" I see she's getting lots of acting nominations, I don't quite get it. Katheryn Bigelow at the helm does a truly extraordinary job, but I can't help, worrying that most people will take this as fact and, perhaps, the most important aspect is pure fiction. No tortured prisoner took us to Bin Laden, okay?

I've lived in the Muslim world for years and in Pakistan for a few months. Now some friends came to stay and the one place they decided they HAD to see was the empty plot of land where once stood Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad. Three hours to go, three hours back, some pictures and a story to tell (the movie says the city is 45 minutes drive from Islamabad, but that was back in 2010 - not now!).

Once we came back we were so involved with the story of the raid that we had to see Zero Dark Thirty (for the 2nd time for me, 1st for them). The killing of UBL is meticulously reconstructed, but only covers the last 30 minutes of the movie. Most of the story involves a CIA semi-fictional agent who by sheer determination and luck convinces the Agency that Bin Laden can be reached, and that they have a good idea of what men is the key to his whereabouts: Ibrahim Sayed, AKA Abu Ahmed Al-Kuwaiti. Information from detainees suggests Sayed is UBL's courier. Our hero figures that, wherever in Central Asia UBL is, the one thing he is sure to have is a courier. Track him, you get the big Kahuna.

The Agency is initially unlucky to believe erroneous intelligence saying Sayed is dead. And then they are lucky to find out he is not dead. With a lot of push from our hero, they allot the resources to find him. It is no easy task. That's my favorite part of the movie. Surveillance technology can find out from where he is calling his family (busy districts in the Punjab), but it is a lot more tricky to follow him in the middle of the crowd to the place where he lives.

After tracking Sayed to a VERY suspicious compound in a city the CIA never expected Bin Laden to be, it is time to decide if this is really UBL's residence. But the mysterious inhabitant never shows his face. I don't think he was hiding from CIA cameras, he just knows he is so recognizable. So the decision is left to the higher-ups, to bomb the place, raid it, or just keep waiting for more definitive intel.

And that is the part where the Director has to make a dramatic decision. Does she show the President and his top aides deliberating? I think putting Obama, Clinton and Biden in the movie would suck all the air out of the room to the detriment of the focus on the field agents. Leon Panneta shows up, but he is not even named. The final act wrote itself, because it is a documentary-like recreation of the raid.

Some reviewers pointed glaring mistakes: the Pakistanis seem to be speaking Arabic instead of Urdu. One part I had to laugh was when a mob stood outside the American Embassy in Islamabad. If you have been there, or anywhere in the diplomatic compound, you know it would never happen.

It is hard to make suspenseful a story that unfolds throughout 10 years and involves meticulous collection of intelligence and a lot of false starts. So the movie may feel like a "boring procedural" for people who are expecting normal Hollywood fare. In order to add a personal touch to the main character, she has a fried killed in a highly implausible scene. Otherwise, Maya just remains a stock character you have to fill in the gaps: lonely woman married to her job, always having to prove herself, obsessed with a task her superiors don't want to give priority.

Some people pointed out to a big lie of the movie: that torture gave crucial information. I'd point out that it is just a half-lie. Yes, nobody gave useful intel for the killing of UBL under torture. However, keeping terror suspects for years under dubious legal status (say with me - Guantanamo!) paid dividends.

This (slightly) fictionalized dramatization of the decade-long hunt for Osama Bin Laden is often difficult to watch, for a variety of reasons, but that doesn't mean it isn't any good. It's just not your typically polished, glistening Hollywood rendition, and that takes a bit of getting used to. Flubbed lines are left in the final cut, which serves to humanize the cast. Quiet, unsuspecting character moments are unforgettably interrupted by sudden explosions of violence - effectively mimicking (or so I have to imagine) the bloodrush of a real-world terrorist assault. The methods of torture employed in America's hunt for Al-Qaeda's leader are brazenly featured, as are the mixed spoils of their occasional success. The first act points a firehose of information at the audience, leaving them just as overwhelmed and buried by minutiae as the lead. Jessica Chastain is fiery and confident in that role, essential traits for the complicated character she occupies, but the rest of the supporting cast fades into the wallpaper when she's around. The actual onslaught on Bin-Laden's compound, which eats up the last hour of the film, is the smoothest and most accessible scene by a longshot, remaining factual and vividly lifelike while also ratcheting up the pacing and the tension. As a whole, though, the film is well-acted and effective, but often slow and over-inflated. Though it paints just one side of the story, it refrains from drawing any final conclusions and instead leaves the viewer to deal with the validity of America's motives and methods.

Zero Dark Thirty is a procedural CIA-based thriller in the mould of TV's Homeland. This film, however, is based on real-life events, so it doesn't have the benefit of being able to withhold in the way Homeland's first series did with Twin Peaks-like delectation. What Zero Dark Thirty does have is a narrative based on first-hand accounts, and it makes no explicit judgement about the content of those accounts. We simply get to see what (apparently) happened during the manhunt for "UBJ".

The film's lack of polemic is both a blessing a curse. It's a blessing because it's rare that a film dealing with such volatile subject matter is depicted procedurally. Usually when a narrative is made ostensibly apolitical it's as a result of an unconvincing moral rebalancing, where the filmmakers go to great lengths to present both sides fairly. But Mark Boal and Kathryn Bigelow's disinterest is also a curse because, in avoiding judgement, it surreptitiously falls firmly on the side of the CIA. It shows what it's allowed to show, but keeps their secrets ("undisclosed location" and all that); and it portrays the operatives as the honourable front-liners getting their hands dirty (but not bloody), beyond moral reproach by virtue of hard graft. In Bigelow's world, it's the suits in Washington who have the blood in their hands - they're disconnected, as evidenced when torture-specialist Dan (Jason Clarke) returns to US headquarters from the field and loses his nerve, becoming a man of soft probabilities.

Clarke is solid but lost amidst superior talent, as he was in John Hillcoat's recent Lawless. Jessica Chastain delivers a nuanced performance. Driven professionals in films often come across as stolid, but Chastain is an actor of subtlety - even if Bigelow can't help lensing her like a wind-swept movie star in the Middle Eastern magic light. Jennifer Ehle uses her moon-faced radiance to good effect, filling her eager operative Jessica with youthful energy. There's a fair amount of distracting spot-the-cameo going on, particularly toward the end, when Joel Edgerton, Mark Duplass and James Gandolfini turn up.

Bigelow's directorial talent is never in doubt. The final sequence in particular is harrowingly tense, even though we know the outcome. And she generally gets the best out of actors. But make no mistake: this is a deeply patriotic film which is cheering for the home team, and it does so under the guise of objectivity, which makes it more manipulative than flag-waving fare like Last Ounce of Courage or Act of Valor, albeit much more skilfully made.

I did not expect to enjoy this as much as I actually did. With its length, complicated nature and incredible detail Zero Dark Thirty was a fantastic piece of work. Jessica Chastain was brilliant in the convincing centre piece of the narrative. It was long, starting strong, losing credit towards the middle but the final hour was terrific. Right down to the raid which was full of suspense and drama. Like the raid itself, it was a precise and scintillating piece of cinema. In the end it felt worth it, I have little interest in the context of its accuracies of the actual events, nor its controversy. In the scheme of things I watched for entertainment, and it delivered. If you're in the mood for something dramatic with a serious tone, watch Zero Dark Thirty.