A screen opens on the sound of old recordings of frightened Americans voices discovering they’re in the midst of the tragedy that became September 11.
Where were you? It all comes back.
Now it’s two years later and we move to a Saudi group – a “Black Site” – an undisclosed location. A terrorist is being starved, beaten, tortured, and water-boarded by Dan (Jason Clarke) because “you and your uncle murdered 3000 people!” Next we’re in Pakistan and there’s a new girl in town – Maya (Jessica Chastain) a young CIA analyst – who watches on with a combination of fear, approval and newness to this game of good cop bad cop.
We move to May 29, 2004, an attack in Saudi Arabia, then to July 7, 2005, an attack on London. September 20,2008 and the terrorists are in Pakistan where they blow up a Marriott. December 30, 2009 a suicide bombing at a supposedly secure base in Afghanistan. It’s a game of high risk and human error as the terrorists manage to stay a step ahead. Almost a cat and mouse chase. But we’re just not fast enough. It’s this premise of our ongoing American defeat in its failure to nail Bin Laden that makes this movie so compelling.
But at least our team Dan and Maya have nailed four of the twenty terrorists on the list. Maya is obsessed with a man named Ahmed al-Kuwaitit, Bin Laden’s courier, who if located, will bring her to Bin Laden himself. (and since Bin Laden can’t be using telephones or internet to get to his men, Ahmed must be the courier.)
Clarke (best known for Brothers on Showtime) replays the likeable bad-ass, while Chastain is studied, contained, soft but hard, able to hold her own with the big boys of the CIA including her boss (James Gandolfini) who apparently has a soft spot for her.
The waterboarding scene has raised controversy which effects the films historic accuracy but from an artistic point of view it gives us the sense of Clark’s and Chastain’s determination without shoving violence down our throat and without making us recoil in our seat like a chainsaw massacre might. Of course like Titanic, for example, we all know the outcome. But in this case, it doesn’t matter. IT’s about the meticulous tale of the weavings in and out, the building of the story, the clues, that finally take our soldiers to the point of a safe house where Bin Laden is hiding. It’s pumped, it’s hopeful, and we gain momentum from their passion as they go. Suddenly we’re wondering at what point in the film we became as obsessed as Maya’s character.
Hurt Locker Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow reteams with her partner Mark Boal to deliver the most electrifying fast-moving, film that captures both history, intrigue and headline-fresh news that’s wrapped up in entertainment (something no other film does this year. Argo and Lincoln are great, but old news amateur hour compared to this.) Not since All the President’s Men has something felt so Patriotic and elegant, historical yet somehow hysterical. The parts shot in real time have you on the edge of your American seat, proud to be watching. Zero Dark Thirty is the best film of the year. ♔ ♕ ♚ ♛