ZERO DARK THIRTY

Columbia Pictures

Rated R

Running time: 157 Minutes



Click below to watch the Zero Dark Thirty trailer.



In Columbia Pictures Zero Dark Thirty, CIA operative Jessica Chastain conducts a decade long search for Osama Bin Laden after the events of 9/11.

Based on the actual events, and directed by Kathryn Bigelow, this film is more of a drama than a war movie. It is very similar in feel to Argo, especially with Kyle Chandler playing similar roles in both movies, although Argo was a more suspenseful film.

After the opening of 911 calls of 9/11, young CIA operative Jessica Chastain spends her entire career interrogating various detainees to the whereabouts of terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden, or Usamah Bin Laden - otherwise known as UBL. Most of the movie dealt with the years of pursuing leads to Bin Laden, until they finally located the compound where Bin Laden is. Considering how long it took in pursuing those leads during the decade, it made me impatient for the movie to get to the scenes with the U.S. Navy SEALs.

In actuality Zero Dark Thirty was originally about the unsuccessful decade-long manhunt for Bin Laden - and had to be rewritten after the news story of Bin Laden being killed. I think the original story would have been very depressing and unsatisfying to watch for a movie. As a movie, the reality of Bin Laden being killed is more satisfying to experience as a movie-goer. Not that I am promoting killing people, but that the bad guy getting justice was very satisfying in a movie setting. It is curious that the sequence on the raid on Bin Laden's compound is only a few minutes less than the actual SEAL assault. I liked that the stealth Black Hawk helicopters used in the assault came from the secret aerial base Area 51. and the GPNVG-18 (Ground Panoramic Night Vision Goggles) made the SEALs look like bug-eyed aliens. The SEALs added a sense of normalcy to the movie on their downtime. Although I was not happy that the movie did not show the SEALs training on a mock up of Bin Laden's compound.

Zero Dark 30 means the very early morning hours when it is still dark outside and most people are asleep, and is usually said as "oh dark thirty" in the military. This was basically the time when the assault by the SEALs on Bin Laden took place as the assault took place at night.

While the torture scenes in the movie were bad, they were not as graphic as what I have seen in other movies with torture. This was a surprise to me, as due to all the publicity and protests about the torture scenes in the movie, I was expecting something really graphic. I don't know if that means that the U.S. is nicer in their treatment of prisoners than the rest of the world or that Hollywood is pretty sick in making movies. These scenes were especially relevant with a news clip of the President of the United States Barack Obama denying that the U.S. employs torture.

At the end of the movie, during the end credits, there was a dedication to the 9/11 victims and the victims of the various terrorist activities, like the Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing and the Forward Operating Base Chapman bombing, since then.

Rated R for violence, language, nudity. Running time: 157 Minutes.

Pancho 
All people smile in the same language.

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