Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

User Review

• 

  Barneyonmovies

  7 / 10

  WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: 'Zero Dark Thirty,' is a film with a single-track mind, and what it focuses on it does very well indeed. It follows the CIA during the second Iraq war on their hunt for Bin Laden, and showcases the web of complex terror networks, fragility of safety and the brutality and aggression of the methods extremely effectively.
  
  On the one hand you really do get a sense of how difficult it is to track individuals down and hold them to account for any wrongs, and that's thanks to a script that really takes its time to broadcast the potential nuances of lies spun by terror networks and to delve into the investigations and interrogations of a number members where it's never really clear what they've done themselves or quite how they're going to lead to those loosely accountable. The script also broadcasts how much danger the agents are in too by placing them in numerous horribly tense scenarios, and the fragility of the whole environment surrounding them is also brought to life extremely well by director Kathryn Bigelow.
  
  It's as a result of all this it seems that the Americans resort to such aggressive tactics, but in showcasing the atrocity of their torture methods and the drive to find certain individuals despite how far the web seems to spin means the film is far from endorsing them. There's a quiet scorning of Obama's banning of torture from the CIA characters, and whilst many have taken this and the brutality of the film as supportive of the methods, ultimately it's made clear to the audience that it's more so their mission and the impossibility and fruitlessness of their task in Iraq that's really brought into question. Sure they got Bin Laden (and that final sequence is executed brilliantly) but it's clear from the countless other terror cells we saw in the film that the problem isn't fixed and that even if some holes have been plugged, the ship is still sinking. In fact, even when the central CIA character identifies Bin Laden's body and this war on terror has apparently reached its head, it's clear it feels as much a hollow victory to her as it does to the rest of us. Ultimately then this is a film with its head deep in the Iraq war, and what it does brilliantly is bring into question the point of the entire exercise and how questionable America's tactics really were.
  
  WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: The script has its head so deep that on the one hand there are times when the plot becomes rather difficult to comprehend (perhaps an unavoidable symptom of something which showcases the impossibility of the overall task), but on other hand - and this is arguably the main criticism of the film - it does rather leave the humanity behind. The CIA characters we're following don't really get any proper development despite some good performances so we never really feel the affects everything is having on them, and we equally never see anything from the perspective of civilians. Now again this is perhaps a symptom of looking from the American side because there was arguably no focus on civilians on their part, but seeing how the West's aggression has affected ordinary people may have helped to paint a broader picture of the tragedy of the situation in the Middle East and the wider affects of America's involvement both prior to this war and during it.
  
  VERDICT: A film that devotes itself to portraying the aggression and complexities of the so-called 'war on terror,' and ultimately the impossibility of it, 'Zero Dark Thirty,' does a great job of doing what it set out to do, but arguably leaves the humanity behind in the process.

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