Zero Dark Thirty

[Lucky]

Was anyone else disappointed in this movie? With all of the buzz it has, I was expecting more than a straightforward telling of the story. The raid on Bin Laden's house was all done in night-vision gear, so I could hardly see what was what. Two stars.

[Guest EXPAT]

I agree. I also thought that Claire Daines does a much better CIA person in "Homeland" than Jessica Chastain did in this movie. I don't see her as Best Actress material. But I think so many "middle America" people like this 'story' that they think they should like it. I was also disappointed. And it was so long, I thought my bladder was going to burst toward the end.

[Guest BudFoxx]

I was expecting more than a straightforward telling of the story.

That perhaps comforts many.

[TotallyOz]

I thought the movie was interesting and I enjoyed seeing it but I don't think an award winning show.

[BiBottomBoy]

I thought the movie was a long mediocre episode of Homeland.

[Guest hitoallusa]

Read the wikipedia plot and it seems to be enough for me. Was torture effective to capture Osama??

[BiBottomBoy]

You don't even get to see Osama get shot. It's fucking off camera!

[RA1]

I wonder how they came up with the name "Zero Dark Thirty"? It is military slang and I have always heard it as "O Dark Thirty". Zero is correct terminology for that number in the alpha numeric lexicon so this is an attempt to "correct" slang?

Best regards,

RA1

[JKane]

I was initially very disappointed by the movie because I feel it portrays our systematic, brutal torture as having been an important tool in finding and killing Bin Laden--despite all accounts to the contrary. But I've had some pretty heated arguments about it with friends. The movie's actually something of a masterpiece of not saying anything. It can be taken either way, depending on your mindset and political bent going in. Which is fascinating, that good friends of very similar biases as mine had the opposite experience of the movie. Yet a part of me still screams that the mouthbreathers who cheered going into Iraq and everything else W did will use it as justification--much like they used the fucking (bad) TV series 24 in the past--to justify our government's torture of people.

It did nothing to address the repercussions for our own people who're captured, and only made passing reference to the unreliability of information gained through torture--a minute before that same brutally broken individual was shown to give the key information as the start of the agent's investigation.

The movie does that a lot--shows something critical in passing without comment. The CIA's operations in dozens of countries as a way to subvert US law, treaties and the constitution itself. The militarization of the CIA, accountable to no one.

And it gives them a glowing gold star for the one thing they're known to have done right in about 15 years (even though it took them TEN!) while passing by all the massive failures (except for WMD which is at least mentioned).

The "60 minutes" piece about it was more informative on the incident itself in what, 30-40 minutes?

And while the acting was better, the fighting wasn't nearly as good as "Act of Valor"'s. The actual compound assault was fairly forgettable.

But it's still interesting how open to interpretation it can be and it is surprisingly apolitical. I just think it's a narrative filmmakers' job to have/express a viewpoint/opinion. Instead of pretending to make a documentary but getting key facts wrong while leaving others out... that is a disservice to everybody.

Also, I found Scott's (few) words about it interesting...

[BiBottomBoy]

I'd care more about the torture shit if the movie seemed like more than just an average TV show put on a big screen.