4.5 stars. Rating: R, for considerable violence, torture and profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.11.13
Osama bin Laden was executed on
May 2, 2011. Given the realities of Hollywood development time, production and
post-production work, this film’s arrival in the waning days of 2012 is nothing
short of remarkable.
 |
| When the SEAL mission finally comes together, Maya (Jessica Chastain) scarcely can believe it. All her years of research, and of trying to persuade CIA superiors that she really might have a lead on Osama bin Laden's location ... and now her work may bear fruit. Or has she been pursuing a useless lead all this time? |
That the result is this riveting,
is icing on the cake.
It’s easy to understand why
director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal would select this project as a
follow-up to their Oscar-laden triumph with 2009’s The Hurt Locker. Although
lacking that film’s nail-biting intensity, Zero Dark Thirty carries the same
suspenseful atmosphere of docu-drama verisimilitude. Given the topic, American
audiences also can’t help experiencing more than a little cathartic
exhilaration.
Unseemly or not, it’s hard to
resist the impulse for an exultant “Hell, yeah!” as we hit the story’s payoff.
Despite the perception that
fact-based, politics-laden “procedural thrillers” (for want of a better term)
are box-office poison, we’ve recently been gifted with two crackling efforts:
this one and Argo. Both manage the impressive feat of generating tension and
building to exciting climaxes, despite our knowing the respective stories’
outcomes long before entering the theater.
That’s no small thing. Scripter
William Goldman’s handling of 1976’s All the President’s Men remains the superlative
template for depicting dull-as-dirt research work in a manner that becomes not
just fascinating, but downright compelling; Boal obviously took its lessons to
heart. Zero Dark Thirty spends a great deal of time watching a lone CIA
analyst beat her head against a vague investigative wall, yet these efforts
never seem dull or repetitive.
In part, that’s because we know
the stakes involved from recent history, and we’re genuinely curious to learn
more about what went into this impressively successful covert operation: how
the key pieces of information were determined and then properly analyzed. And
if Boal takes some dramatic license along the way, well, that’s fine; cinema
places its own unique requirements on narrative flow, not the least of which is
building our emotional involvement with these characters.
Which brings us to the best
weapon in Bigelow’s capable filmmaking arsenal: star Jessica Chastain. As the
CIA analyst in question, she drives this story with — by turns — calm
intelligence and righteous fury. She’s never less than wholly persuasive,
whether cycling grimly through surveillance footage or standing up to overly
cautious superiors too concerned about their political reputations.
Even Chastain’s quiet moments are
laden with emotional depth, when she sinks, exhausted, into the austere
quarters that have become “home.” We understand that this woman has no true
home: no family, no friends, no lovers. Nothing but The Mission.
• Buy Blu-Ray: 
) play up writer Mark Boal's documentary-style approach, often employing the grainy film stock and hand-held camera work that simulate events as they unfold. (Fortunately, Bigelow is savvy enough to minimize this technique, using it only when appropriate, to spare us attacks of vertigo.)