Movie Review: The hunt for Osama in 'Zero Dark Thirty'

Oh, CIA agent Maya; give her UBL or give her death. 

 

There she sits in a military cargo plane, her face framed in an almost Kubrickian shot of transcendence. Twelve years of her life have led to this: the terrorist she’s been hunting dead, mission accomplished, all the sweetness leached from her, loveless, friendless and unfriendly, alone on a flight that—the pilot says—will take her anywhere she wants to go.   

 

With nothing left to do, where will she go? 

 

This is how Jessica Chastain, one of the most beautiful women in Hollywood (we last saw her as a femme fatale on the run in “Lawless”), breathes life into the role of the CIA agent who was recruited straight out of high school, bagging her an Oscar-nomination for Best Actress in a Drama.  
 

Where is Usama?

 

“Zero Dark Thirty” is all about the hunt for Osama/Usama Bin laden (UBL is the movie’s preferred shorthand), the bogeyman-in-chief of al Qaeda. The movie takes us behind the scenes with the team of intelligence and military operatives who’ve been working in secret to find and eliminate UBL. It’s Maya’s story, who’s had the patience to “stare at the haystack until the needle revealed itself.”  

 

It’s directed by the director-producer team of “The Hurt Locker,” Kathryn Bigelow (also James Cameron’s ex-wife) and writer-producer Mark Boal. The title is a reference to the military jargon on the time the assault mission started (12:30 A.M.).

 

I thoroughly enjoyed Bigelow’s movie, but before we get to the review itself (which is a two thumbs up), there are a few things you should know. 

 

About neutrality

 

No, there won’t be any spoilers, I promise. 

 

Neither will this be a polemic about the politics of the torture depicted herein (Huffpost UK’s Mehdi Hasan has already articulated everything that I wanted to say in his review slash FAQ and likely far more eloquently and with authority than I ever could) but you must know that, though it may seem on the surface to be neutral in its storytelling—particularly about how torture was effective in finding UBL—this is not a neutral film. Though Bigelow (and even Sony Pictures) does say it tries to be and declared her stance in press rounds as “willfully neutral.”  

 

It is NOT neutral about torture and its effectiveness.  

 

From the start, we’re given notice that this movie is “based on firsthand accounts of actual events.” 
 

   

What that means is that it’s claiming a stake on the REAL story that doesn’t stray far from whatever distortion the all mighty “dramatic purposes” exacts on Boal’s script. Bigelow herself has gone on record in CBS News to say that “they’re all based on real people.” 

 

If you listen closely, throughout the film we are told that “the detainee program” (torture) produced the intelligence that eventually led to the assault on UBL’s compound. A tortured detainee gives up the name of an important courier and he’s set free to have lunch with the CIA agents. Toward the end, Maya harps about it at the briefing with the chopper drop and assault team that the information was acquired from intel "based on detainee reporting." 

 

There’s where I agree with Hasan. Bingo on direct correlation. 

 

Last time I looked, being neutral entails presenting the view of the other side—though, okay, it’s a stretch to linger on the torturee’s POV. But no one at any given point in this movie says “No, this is not working so we should stop.” In its self-appointed duty as reporting angel, the movie really should have an obligatory “anti” view for simple balance. 

 

We’re shown Obama delivering his famous indictment about torture but he doesn’t count. Even the agents watching the TV shrug and quickly talk about something else. 

 

There’s nothing here that glamorizes or openly condones torture, but in a film where everything’s medias res (we barely know anything about Maya or Dan, no explanation for the motivations of al Qaeda, everything’s hustled right along”), perspective is just as crucial as context, context, context.

 

Bigelow’s got balls

 

Having said that, should you go see it? Absolutely. 

 

I urge you, in fact, to see it. Despite what you may have heard about the controversy of it being anti-Islam (it’s not), or if you’re worried the rah rah “protect the homeland” platitudes (debatable, at best) might turn you off. 

 

Yes, despite all of what I previously said. Do NOT let anything get in the way of you seeing this gripping piece of work.   

 

The movie starts out two years after 9/11, where we find CIA agents Dan (Jason Clarke, also from “Lawless” in a stand out co-lead role) and Maya are at a black site, torturing the detainee Ammar. 

 

Maya stands in stark contrast with her delicate features and halo of cascading red hair, to the bearded and brutish torturer, Dan. The grindcore at high volume, the ropes that raise the torturee's arms, the humiliation of having your pants down in front of a woman is all so classic 60s “Kubark Manual” it’s almost cliche. 

 

They’re desperately seeking something that will lead to a strike, and eventually the detainee gives up a name: Abu Ahmed. As one morsel of information leads to another, Maya and Dan travel to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kuwait, the CIA HQ and even Area 51 as they frustratingly encounter dead end after dead end. All through out, the al Qaeda international cells carry out their work with the UK bus bombing, and the Times Square incident. 

 

After Maya survives the Marriot Hotel bombing in Pakistan, the search progressively warps her into singular obsession. 

 

One of the pivotal moments is a clean-shaven Dan back at CIA HQ in a polo and slacks talking to Maya; a far cry from his days waterboarding detainees. The cut to cuts are inspired in subtly indicating that this new clean-Dan may be Maya’s future self we’re looking at—an agent who’s graduated from brutalizing people to finessing intelligence; sans the hamstringing morality. We’re shown a sign of Dan’s humanity as he grinningly feeds monkeys ice cream at a black site, but there’s never that kind of levity with Maya. 

 

Give her liberty

 

This is a spy adventure worthy of its historic content and the verite approach that is its theme and clarion. 
 

   

Aside from the assault sequence that is a shot by shot procedural on the now familiar assault of the Al-Qaeda compound (guaranteed to send military buffs into geek gasm), by far my fave scene is when CIA task force chief George (“Syriana’s” Mark Strong) berates his team with a grand dressing down of the hunting cost escalating to the billions. He urges them to “Bring me people to kill!” Notably, only Maya meets his eyes. By the by, this is probably the only time that anyone’s indirectly indicated that all the torture is netting them squat. After this point there is no more waterboarding. 

 

We’ve all seen the picture of a dead Usama and know how this ends. Yet all that doesn’t take away the excitement or anxiety as we watch the chopper go down, the Navy Seals breach doors, and finally ascend to the top floor. 

 

When Maya hears the report of “Geronimo! For God and country!,” my shoulders relaxed and I exhaled in relief, unaware that I’d been holding my breath. The agent who has no friends and whose real-life basis has been described by her CIA associates as “not Miss Congeniality” has killed the enemy. 

 

Move over, crazy eyes Carrie Matheson (“Homeland”), we’ve got a new daughter of liberty to obsess over. It’s “ZDT” time. —KG, GMA News

 

“Zero Dark Thirty” is now showing at all Metro Manila theaters. 

All photos courtesy of Universal Pictures.