Yet a CIA character bemoans how the information spigot ran dry after Obama halted the use of enhanced interrogation tactics, a sequence sure to rile up the president's apologists.
Such moments are fleeting and hardly typify the tone or purpose. Director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal have made a smart, methodical film, thoroughly sober in its tactics and restraint. No rah-rah moments, movie star quips or scenes meant to inspire cheers from packed theaters.
No matter how much information the duo may or may not have received from the Obama White House, what we see on screen is gently mesmerizing. It's a nearly three hour procedural punctuated by the most ferocious female hero since Sigourney Weaver called that ugly alien a "bitch" back in "Aliens."
"Zero Dark Thirty" begins with a black screen, the sounds of Sept. 11, 2011 heard all too clearly. From there the hunt for bin Laden begins, a process that involves plenty of enhanced interrogations of key witnesses. That means name calling, sleep deprivation and, yes, the most cruel practice imaginable, water boarding.
(It's such an inhuman practice that actors from Denzel Washington to "Zero" star Jason Clarke voluntarily submitted to it.)
Clarke, last seen in the moonshine actioner "Lawless," plays a U.S. interrogator working with a feisty new recruit. Maya (Jessica Chastain) looks uneasy about the interrogation tactics at first, but her zest to bring bin Laden to justice soon takes over. She becomes obsessed with the terrorist mastermind, and while her passion alarms her superiors, her undying efforts slowly start to pay off.
"Zero Dark Thirty" is in no rush to get to bin Laden's lair. We see the finer details of enhanced interrogation, watch CIA officials wring their hands over their elusive target and get to know Maya without any of the standard character tells. She appears to have no friends, no home life, no significant other, yet Chastain makes her a flawed heroine you'd gladly march behind into battle.
Later in the film, when co-star Joel Edgerton expresses confidence that they'll soon find bin Laden due to Maya's almost Zen-like optimism, you simply nod in agreement.
The interrogation sequences early in the film could certainly inflame radicalized elements in the Middle East, but taken in context the film shows how they played a role in gaining
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2013/01/10/zero-dark-thirty-review
