?? Zero Dark Thirty

About half way through this governmental corporate-actioner you may feel that you’re watching one of those Xbox games in which character-less ciphers go through the motions and commit outrageous acts onscreen that seem designed as porn for the popcorn crowd.  There are more than a few “talking” scenes in which CIA-looking men and women go on in techno-black ops babble about what terrorists have done and how close they are to getting captured and punished for their terrible deeds.

After the attacks on the United States World Trade Center in 2001, CIA operative Maya (Jessica Chastain) travels to a black site where interrogations take place with Al-Qaeda suspects to gather intelligence in tracking down Osama bin Laden the man taking credit for the terrorist attack.  In the interrogations Maya assists Dan (Jason Clarke) as he systematically breaks down a prisoner and extracts information that leads to the CIA tracking down other Al-Qaeda associates, many of whom are false leads as further bombings continue in Europe and Army Bases.  When after years in the field Maya discovers a man who may lead to bin Laden, she employs a team to concentrate and attack in the hopes that the leader of the terrorists will be stopped permanently.

Zero Dark Thirty is a bad picture.  There is not one redeeming notion to this pro-crypto Republican revenge tale that outlines the trajectory of the United States and its relationship with Osama Bin Laden, and his ultimate assassination at the hands of a group of Special Forces Army fighters.  It’s like watching a reenactment of the sailing of the Titanic- we know what the end of the story is, and watching the film and the fetishistic doting on “intelligence” and execution of ferreting out the bad guys viscerally involves us in the acts of torture and dispatch.

To top it off, the movie disregards any and all attempts to humanize most all of its lead characters, especially on the American side, certain ones that pointedly interrogate with extreme prejudice those supposed terrorists held in Guantanamo and at other detention centers.  This disdain for personalization guarantees that the audience will see the film as a battle cry of America to strike back at those lead by bin Laden to commit sabotage against innocent Americans and others in the world.

Our two main characters Jason Clarke’s psychically fractured torturer Dan, and Jessica Chastain’s emotionally barren Maya comprise the ostensible love story at the center of this tale, and the idea that these two will be the deciders of the future of the world is a frightening one.  Chastain’s Maya, in particular, seems to be a vicious version of all the men in the picture who all seem emasculated in the face of overwhelming lack of knowledge about the interlocking link of terrorists in the world operating under Al Qaeda.

We keep waiting for a scene in which Dan and Maya will get into a clinch, showing that even the most cold-hearted secret agent is doing a job to get the terrorists because of a sense of love for another person.  We only get Dan’s lonely monologue to a group of caged monkeys, an ironic statement about the ultimate diminishing of individual character that such a national act of revenge has on a person.

It’s hard to knock the detailed way that Director Kathryn Bigelow brings to life Mark Boal’s screenplay.  It’s possibly too detailed as some scenes wallow in pointless meetings between suited white guys about national policy and ultimate proof of involvement of certain characters and their connections with bin Laden.  Many of these scenes are done with high dramatic angst, only making half sense logically in how characters argue about America is progressing with tracking down the head terrorist.

This vacant landscape is hammered home with a final shot that means nothing, and signifies the final finger flip-off to an audience who may walk away wondering why they have allowed themselves to relive in cinema what history has already laid before us.

Recommend this product? Yes

Movie Mood: Action Movie
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: Looked complete to me.
Worst Part of this Film: Plot