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(1/10/13, one star) Kathryn Bigelow and her new movie Zero Dark Thirty deserve our universal contempt and condemnation for condoning torture. Bigelow revisits the darkest chapter in U.S. history (U.S. torture in the Middle East in the aftermath of 9/11) and dwells on it, not to condemn the actions of U.S. leaders who authorized this campaign of state terror against Muslim prisoners but rather to vindicate the torturers and justify the savagery that earned the undying enmity of millions of Arabs. Bigelow is too crafty to explicitly hold up criminals as heroes worthy of veneration but instead constructs a superficial veneer of faux-journalistic neutrality that will fool only the most gullible along with those anxious to buy into the dangerous delusion she is peddling. She dedicates large segments of her movie to portraying U.S. torturers as selfless patriots and their victims as homicidal maniacs, but not one minute to explaining why they attack us. Of course, we can't have Americans wondering what our government had been doing to make Muslims hate us so much. And with 9/11 our national descent into deceit, denial and self-delusion began, with no end in sight yet. According to the official myth still being perpetuated by our government and unconscionable propagandists like Bigelow, Muslim radicals are never rational actors but rather just crazed fanatics, to be tortured and destroyed like mad dogs. And now Bigelow compounds this ongoing national folly with the resurrection of its corollary Big Lie: torture of detainees is compatible with democracy, even necessary to protect it.

Torture is just another form of terrorism. When the state tortures detainees, it is state terrorism, directed ultimately against all humanity as well as against individual detainees. Torturers degrade and dehumanize themselves, their victims, and any society that tolerates their crimes. How can anyone claim victory over terrorism when they employ it themselves? Besides, torturers (most famously, the Nazi and Communist regimes in Germany and Russia) have always rationalized torture on grounds of public security, but have always ultimately used torture as a weapon to terrorize the public and crush political opposition. (Do we really want to emulate the Nazis and Communists?) In the long run, torturers are a more pernicious threat to both our security and our liberty than any Al Qaeda agent could ever hope to be.

Senator McCain is right when he says that Zero Dark Thirty gives our enemies powerful ammunition to use against us, especially if it garners awards. Audiences around the world will see the movie as confirmation that the horrors of Abu Ghraib reflect the real soul of America.

"Zero Dark Thirty" is a grim, clinical depiction of the CIA search for Osama bin Laden. Its strongest feature is its dramatization of the Navy Seal Team 6 operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed bin Laden. That sequence is so professionally shot it could be actual documentary footage.

"Zero" has no real plot. Episodic scenes occur in a choppy manner, one after the other. Scenes consist of depictions of beating and water boarding of detainees in order to gather information, agents stalking a suspect in Pakistan's crowded, chaotic bazaars, terrorist bombings, assassinations and assassination attempts. There are also scenes in offices where characters stare intently at computer screens or interrogation videos, and characters yell at each other and use obscenities, as their frustrating hunt for Osama bin Laden wears them down.

"Zero" makes no attempt to draw the viewer in with any human sentiment. Characters are given no backstory and no character arch. CIA agent Maya, played by Jessica Chastain, is the closest the film has to a main character. She reveals no affect. Her face is blank. She isn't so much robotic as inert. We know nothing about her, except that she was recruited to the CIA while in high school – we are never told what would draw the CIA to a high school student. I didn't care about this character at all. All I kept thinking was, "Jessica Chastain is being praised for *this* performance? Why?" The dullness of her performance, and the underwritten character, made it almost impossible for me to lose myself in the story, such as it was.

Jason Clarke is very strong and charismatic as Dan, a CIA interrogator. Dan humiliates, beats, and water boards suspects, and then feeds them delicious meals of hummus and olives when they deliver. His depiction of his work as just another job – he could be playing a bus driver with the same amount and degree of expressiveness – is provocative. I wish I had gone to see a film built around his character and his performance.

Overall, I was disappointed in the film. Feature films are an art form. I want them to do to me what drama can do. I want to be made to identify with a character and I want, through that identification, to learn more about life, or I want to be entertained. "Zero" did neither for me. I wasn't entertained, and my understanding and worldview were not expanded. I think the same material could have been better treated in a documentary with selective re-enactments.

"Zero Dark Thirty" sidesteps key questions. Maya sacrificed years of her life to the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Dan risks his humanity by making his living beating and humiliating other men. Men, women and children throughout the Muslim world, and, as the film makes clear, in America's and Europe's cities, are eager to blow themselves up, as long as they can take some infidels with them. Why? The film doesn't even acknowledge that there are people out there asking the question, never mind attempting to suggest an answer.

The film opens with audio from the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, suggesting that the war between Islam and the non-Muslim world dates from that attack. Not so. Islam increased its territory through jihad from its invention in the seventh century until September 11, 1683, at the Battle of Vienna. After that defeat, Islam stopped its spread. The significance of the date of September 11 goes back over four centuries.

America's founding fathers had to deal with jihad; see Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates. Some argue terrorism, including the 9-11 attack, is caused by Western imperialism. The solution to these thinkers is for the Western world to be nicer to non-Western nations, to practice multiculturalism and to share the wealth. Others argue that jihad is inextricable from Islam, and that one necessary step is for the West to recognize and cherish its own unique virtues – to cherish that for which its spies, soldiers, and citizens fight, sacrifice, kill and die.

"Zero Dark Thirty" never so much as brushes up against these questions. At its key moment, the film is hollow. We all know how the hunt ends – we all know Osama bin Laden is dead. "Zero" might have addressed why Maya gave the time of her life to that hunt, why Dan risked his humanity, why Seal Team 6 trained for years and risked their lives. "Zero" never does consider why these, who might have been the film's heroes, did what they did, and I walked out of the theater oddly unmoved by all the high tension and graphic violence I'd just sat through.

Maya (Jessica Chastain) is a CIA analyst who won't rest from the hunt fro Bin Laden. Director Kathryn Bigelow has followed the hunt from 9-11 to the tension filled raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The movie is based on the true events. There is a relevant question of how true to the events is the movie. Unlike most movies, this is actually an important question.

Most of us have no hope of knowing the true facts that actually happened. This movie is certainly a possible reality. Some of it is probably wrong. They've probably changed some of it to not reveal CIA trade craft. Others looks different than what's been reported on the news. However it is overall following the story already laid out for the public.

The hunt for Bin Laden can meander and not follow a straight line. It doesn't really built like a normal movie. Bigelow is still able to maintain the tension throughout the movie. The last 40 minutes is where this movie truly excels. The raid in Abbottabad is incredibly tense. The Hollywood flashiness is mostly removed. It takes its time. It's done almost in real time. It has the intensity of realism. It's shocking how real the raid looked.

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 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.