Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Best movie ever!

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

I love this film, I can't remember how many times I've already seen it. I love Maya, the lead character of this film, based on a true CIA operative whose job is to locate UBL ( Usama Bin Laden).It took years and years of looking for the "proverbial needle in the haystack", and yet her conviction and determination, along with her colleagues, never waned on finding the the most wanted man on earth.Until she finally found the man and nobody believed her.

Movie Review: "Zero Dark Thirty" (2012)When on May 2nd 2011 the assassination of Osama Bin Laden (1957-2011) had been announced through the administration of the 44th President of the United States Barack Obama, Academy-Award winning journalist-turning-screenwriter Mark Boal takes on an event-horizon occasion to present a screenplay toward a second time collaboration with Director Kathryn Bigelow, who had been searching further cinema-worthy content despite directing a TV-drama for HBO (Home Box Office) in season 2010/2011 after her surprisingly-received Best Director Academy-Award for the 2008-shot "The Hurt Locker" on an Iraq-invaded operations of U.S. army military elite bomb squad. Columbia Pictures presents this CIA-operative thriller also-produced by Megan Ellison for production company Annapurna Pictures, where Director Kathryn Bigelow relies completely on her leading actress Jessica Chastain, playing the character of Maya as task-forcing CIA-undercover agent on the constant as determined run to fight and convince Washington DC-representing officials in sparely decorated rooms of quickly-engaged conference meetings, when further supporting roles, including Mark Strong as range-playing hands-on-table crushing CIA-research team leader George, Jason Clarke as interrogation technique of water-boarding performing character of Dan in opening scenes of controversy, when a highlighted accurately-represented sequence of title-justifying raids-before-dawn in heavy state-of-the-art U.S. military gear portrayals by actors Joel Edgerton and Chris Pratt performing as members of a Navy Seals squad team engaging onto a secret family-living of the notorious terrorist's hide-out; a fortress-like compound out of plain concretes with no paint somewhere in rural-Pakistan-mimicking desert exterior set, when cinematographer Greig Fraser delivers digitally-received visuals in high-sensoring contrasts of striking light sources in the dark, fading shadows of emotionally-prepared cameos of Middle Eastern children of innocence after blown-off metal doors under night-visioned sparks of fire.The 150-Minute-Editorial by William Goldenberg keeps its pace, when Academy-Award-nominated Jessica Chastain's interpretation of Maya carries the majority of scenes toward a fulminate mesmerizing premise close-up shot by the end of beat-twisting "Zero Dark Thirty" to such an extent of staying gripped in the spectator's mind as realistic central intelligence thriller with the previously-mentioned military action highlighted scene that prevails truth to the core of an news-spreading event of historic event striking victory by the U.S. government.© 2018 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

Zero Dark Thirty, a movie almost immediately made after what's trying to show us, the death of Osama Bin Laden. Not only shows us how and when it was, but also shows us a lot of the processes required and executed in order to achieve that same goal.The movie has a lot of famous faces (to mention some: James Gandolfini, Chris Pratt, Mark Strong, Kyle Chandler), and I believe that's because of the plot itself, they wanted to be a part of it. I can understand that. Nevertheless, the director Kathryn Bigelow focuses more on Maya (Jessica Chastain), a CIA agent completely determined and solemnly focused on finding and capturing/killing Bin Laden. She was amazing in that role, I really enjoyed watching her in this movie.Even though the movie has 2 hours and 37 minutes, there were sometimes I was wondering the year, or month, of some scenes. It covered a long period of time and personally I had some troubles keeping up with the pace. In the meantime, a lot of attention was paid to details, and I loved it. All the actors did a great job showing the kind of emotions they were feeling, the stress, the fear, the apathy, the anxiety.A lot is shown in this movie (I don't know until what point what is true or not) regarding the processes within the CIA and the US Government, all the secrecy, all the doubts, the separation between what lives matters and which don't. It was interesting realizing that thinking you're the good guy doesn't make you act like one.Definitely a movie everybody should watch. It's interesting, and it's a part of History that every one of us lived. I give it a 7 out of 10.

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.