Zero Dark Thirty

Osama Bin Laden was brought down by a woman!  One woman working for the CIA, who lost many friends and did everything in her power to keep the hunt for the most wanted man alive going, managed to find his hideout even though there was no conclusive evidence that he was there. 

Directed by the first woman in history to win a Best Director Oscar for the movie The Hurt Locker (2009), Kathryn Bigelow’s new film is a detailed account of how Bin Laden’s hideout was finally discovered after ten years of gathering intelligence. 

Are you curious about why it took so long to find the most wanted man on earth, the man responsible for the 911 terrorist attacks that claimed thousands of innocent lives? Or how he was ultimately found? This movie answers those questions. It’s not quite as exciting as the bomb defusing squad movie The Hurt Locker, but the last forty minutes of Zero Dark Thirty that shows the secret operation going into Pakistan to raid Bin Laden’s compound is mesmerizing. 

The movie depicts our self-assured heroine, Maya, in conflicts and rivalries with various department heads and colleagues within the CIA organization. She has extensive knowledge of the enemy and is an expert in Al-Qaeda’s tactics. But when a false lead turns tragic, she becomes even more determined to see Bin Laden brought to justice. Jessica Chastain is well cast as the confident but vulnerable CIA agent who will stop at nothing to get what she needs, and has been nominated for an Oscar for her role in this movie. 

Filmed in a documentary style, we are immersed in the high security world of CIA agents in the field and their interrogation tactics at ‘black sites’, or unknown locations around the world, punctuated by terrorist bombings in public locations and the real threat that Al Qaeda poses as fanatical suicide bombers quickly adapt and take advantage of lapses in security. 

We all know how this story ends but what’s interesting is how it gets there and how after years of interrogations and bad leads due to human error, it finally comes down to some lucky breaks, a hunch, and one woman’s determination.  The story is in the details. 

We have all read and heard about the Special Forces team that flew into hostile territory with helicopters in the dead of night and quickly broke into a highly secured walled compound, identifying and extracting the body of Osama Bin Laden while everyone slept. This film shows us in detail how that operation actually went down and the courageous woman who was behind it. 

Don’t miss this inspiring film about one of the most important events in recent history by one of our most exciting film makers. 

JP