Director Kathryn Bigelow recounts the hunt for Osama bin Laden in the intense and relentless new movie “Zero Dark Thirty.”
The movie centers around a CIA agent named Maya, portrayed by Northern California product Jessica Chastain, as she spends the last 10 years attempting to track down Osama bin Laden through the various leads she obtains. Maya and her colleagues interrogate numerous al Qaeda detainees, often leading to frustrating dead ends. As the search becomes unsuccessful, al Qaeda continues carrying out deadly bombings around the world. When hope is all but lost, an overlooked piece of evidence gives Maya her best lead to the possible location of bin Laden and his eventual extraction.
Bigelow once again teams up with screenwriter, Mark Boal for their most anticipated movie following, “The Hurt Locker.” The duo successfully delivers a story full of suspense and incredible detail. The added degree of difficulty of pleasing an audience that already knew the ending was fully achieved in this collaboration.
The movie is long with an official running time of 157 minutes. Be prepared to go through a test of endurance and patience. The movie is very heavy with dialogue.
The two-hour plus movie is essential in providing the audience with the notion of how Maya spent 10 frustrating years trying to track down her target. The action comes in small bursts for nearly three quarters of the movie with brief scenes of terrorist attacks and interrogation scenes. However, rest assured, the final 20 minutes is nothing short of
entertaining.
Bigelow and Boal once again brings us a movie that not only entertains us, but also educates us in how our military and government seeks and administers justice. In no way does it appear to have a political bias which is a commendable achievement; rather, it is a basic story of the hunt for bin Laden.
“Zero Dark Thirty” will leave you with a better understanding of how there are evil people in the world but there are also good people who will stop at nothing in order to take them down.
