Starring Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
Those who recall images of Americans lustily celebrating Osama bin Ladens assassination in the streets may understandably feel apprehensive about the prospect of Zero Dark Thirty.
And admittedly, in lesser hands, this depiction of the decade-long manhunt for the al-Qaeda founder couldve easily devolved into a jingoist propaganda film.
Fortunately, director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal (who previously teamed up on The Hurt Locker) hold themselves to a higher standard and craft a rigorously constructed, masterfully executed procedural.
Their commendable restraint is evident right from a prelude which revisits the events of September 11, 2001 by assembling an aural collage of actual 911 calls from that day. This not only serves to personalize the victims but establishes the burden of responsibility that rests on the intelligence community as they seek to prevent another such incident.
Were next introduced to Maya (Jessica Chastain), a largely untested CIA operative, and remain at her side as a single interrogation spirals into a worldwide scavenger hunt for leads before homing in on a compound in Pakistan.
As the narratives scope expands and contracts, the tension remains unrelenting and the pace is never short of frantic.
And while the climactic Navy SEAL raid is a staged with military precision, Chastains performance proves every bit as riveting. She skilfully embodies the mounting obsession demanded of Maya.
Defined solely by the task shes been assigned, her sense of duty must cede to a sense of destiny. And, in a devastating final sequence, we see the toll this exacts on her.
While everyone else is free to celebrate a mission accomplished, shes left isolated, morally compromised, and clueless as to where she goes from here.
