Zero Dark Thirty

Zero Dark Thirty directed by Kathryn Bigelow staring Jason Clarke, Jessica Chastain, Jennifer Ehle, and Joel Edgerton. 

I don’t want to come at this movie based on politics, but I want to write about this movie based on it being a movie. 

Over the years of watching Bigelow films I’ve come to not like her as a director. She was the worst thing about The Hurt Locker and she really hasn’t done a great movie since she started directing them. There have been the few movies that have reached cult status: Near Dark and Point Break but she hasn’t directed a movie so far that would put her in the great film directors.  She hasn't make a movie that has withstood the tests of time. Saying all of that Zero Dark Thirty isn’t going to be that movie either, but it is the best film she’s directed so far to date and it heads and tails better than the overrated The Hurt Locker. Her direction for The Hurt Locker was all over the place with only one scene in that movie being really well directed (the sniper scene was extremely well directed).  But with Zero Dark Thirty she doesn’t let herself get in the way of the story and actually directs it much better than she ever has before. I’m not saying the film doesn’t have problems (which I will get to here shortly) but I don’t think the problems outweigh how good the film is on its own. 

Now to the film itself. Bigelow had one big problem with The Hurt Locker namely that she didn’t want to break down what made the main character do what he did and act how he acted. The main character just seemed to be some adrenaline junkie and no reason was ever given to support how or why he acted like he did. I mean something would have been better than nothing. Bigelow seemed much more interested in the action part of that movie than in actually creating a character for the audience to care about. That is part of the problem with Zero Dark Thirty for at least part of the film. The first hour of the film gives no reason for the main character to really care that much about finding bin Laden except 9-11, which if that’s the reason then shouldn’t everyone in the CIA also be that hell bent on finding him not just the main character? There needs to be something to motivate the main character to do what she does besides she just likes analyzing information, even that isn’t really said. But after the hour mark this problem is solved by having some of her friends get killed by a bomb, while other bombing incidents happen around the world, all claimed by the bin Laden’s group.  She also has an assassination attempt at he home.  These really help to cement her character with motivation and give her justification for the way she throws herself into pursuing bin Laden.  

The first hour felt a little overwhelming and disjointed but I think that part of the reason it was this way was because of all the information they had at the time was all over the place and nothing was really pin pointing anything. But the last hour and half of the film really flies by.  And as the characters get focused, the information gets focused the film becomes a whole new kind of film completely different from the feel of the first part of the movie. The stakes become raised that much higher.  The last 20 minutes of the film, the raiding of bin Laden’s bunker, was amazingly directed with no frills or over-the-top set pieces, just directness and focus with the execution of the mission that has come to define our SEAL teams and Special Forces units. I know the real stars of this kind of fact based movie tend to be the fact based stuff, but Bigelow has gathered some good actors and technical talent to bring this movie to life.  All of them rise to the challenge and make a good movie that serves to give honor to the people killed and people who helped to find Bin Laden.