Zero Dark Thirty

[Jake Gittes]

While I disagree with all your contentions, I still would like to get your opinion as to why you think it had great direction and which are sequnces you found thrilling.

Don't take it personally. People tastes and opinions vary. But as a movie buff for almost 4 decades, I do not find the evidence that the movie has anything of value in cinematic terms. I'm just trying to understand, why a movie lacking in many areas would be considered great by some here.

I find the direction great in the way it takes the material and treats it without much cinematic flair, but at the same time doesn't reduce the film to a TV documentary, instead finding a fine middle ground. It's a procedural taken to the extreme: going step by step through cold hard facts, with an atmosphere of mostly ordinary corridors and offices, underlined by sustained low-key intensity - it's a determined, meticulous, obsessive film about determined, meticulous, obsessive people. It's a laconic and perfectly fitting style, and by the end of the film, all those individual scenes add up very well to show just how massive and all-consuming the work of finding UBL was.

That all doesn't mean that the film is sterile and simply goes through the motions, as Bigelow has a couple of tricks up her sleeve with regards to storytelling, suspense and audience manipulation. Take just the opening scenes: the first thing you hear is a desperate phone call from one of the Twin Towers, it's unexpected, immediate and bone-chilling. From there Bigelow immediately cuts to a detainee being tortured, and she takes you on a bit of an emotional journey: after that phone call you want to see this guy get tortured, no matter how big or small his contribution to the attacks might have been. But it's not long before the lack of visual flair, along with the way the actual torture goes down, bumps you back into reality to make you realize how cruel, pointless and not black-and-white it all is.

In these opening scenes, Bigelow is also hardly concerned with pointing out to the audience who the protagonist is: not knowing anything about its plot, you might as well think Dan is the main character, and wonder just where the hell can he go from here. Alas, turns out it's not him, but he's not forgotten, and moves in a completely natural way to being a supporting character. Staying with Dan for a moment, it's precisely Bigelow's directorial restraint that helps emphasize two great points: the way Dan first simply tortures Ahmar and then simply has a perfectly friendly conversation with him helps the latter situation look and feel almost perverse. Then, the way Dan goes from torturing people in Pakistan to pushing papers in DC makes you wonder just how many other people you see walking down those corridors might have come from the same background. What if Kyle Chandler's character did that too once? What about Mark Strong's character? Bigelow doesn't spell it out, but she doesn't need to: it's a perfectly natural question for you to ask once you put two and two together.

Then there's the suspense, approached differently in two key pre-raid sequences: the explosion at the restaurant and the explosion of the car on the CIA territory. In the first instance, it comes completely out of nowhere; in the second one, you immediately fear the worst and think that yeah, the worst is likely going to happen, but hope until the last second that it won't; it's all drawn out and tense and anxious as hell. Both times, Bigelow's approach completely works.

I've probably already written too much here, so I'll just quickly mention that I find equally great the raid scene, the comparison of Maya to America itself that's made totally clear in the final scene, complete with the "well, what now?" question. There's also an argument to be made about the movie painting a full picture of what "modern warfare/manhunt" is like (all those giant monitors, tons of document work, "we don't deal in certainty we deal in probability" etc), but that plays second fiddle to the whole obsession/procedural thing. The score suits the mood perfectly, the editing is masterful, all the actors nail it - there aren't a lot of showy moments, but the movie's realistic tone extends fully to its characters - these are real people you're watching. So there you have it.

[fishstick]

It's a good movie, but not much more than that, IMO. I give it 7/10I have some problems with it, one being: what happened with the guys left behind after the raid??? Where did the dog dissapear?Also they have silencers on their rifles, but bomb the entrances, and what the hell is that seal wispering ''Osama...Osama''.

To lull people in the room into thinking that their people were coming (they`ve heard the steps) and to confirm that Osama was indeed there.

Another, the kamikaze doctor coming into the american base was real? It was very predictable, and if it's real, then....the americans are really stupid

It was well-explained why Jennifer Ehle character made such a stupid mistake - she believed that Al Qaida was cash-driven whereas Maya believed that they were radicals driven by ideology. So Ehle didn`t expect those guys who were just offered millions to blow themselves up. But they did becasue cash isn`t what they believe in. They use it as a means of achieving radical goals but they are still fanatics first and foremost, so between blowing up a group of CIA agents and taking millions they chose the former. That`s what Ehle couldn`t understand.

[4815162342]

Doctor Who Jennifer Ehle's character dies in this real attack:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Chapman_attack

[4815162342]

I get what she was trying to do, but I thought the nightvision needed some time to adjust to but before you could adjust you were yanked back to regular vision and it just repeated again and again giving me a headache. It's the only actually bad directing IMO in the entire movie. The rest of the movie is quite well directed.

Probably just a personal sensory thing then since I had no headaches or trouble adjusting vision.

[jb007]

Jake Gittes: Thank you for the thoughtful response. :)I think we will just have to agree to disagree.

[AniNate]

You captured my thoughts perfectly, Jake. Personally I think the hotel and the suicide bomb scene (+ the IM exchange with Maya) will go down as the film's most memorable setpieces.

[Kevin Bacon]

The movie accomplished being able to make me give the first shit about Osama Bin Laden and the hunt for him, so it was pretty effective. Great tension, probably felt like the longest movie I've ever seen, and not in a bad way. Acting all around great, and I don't see how they were supposed to hype up the raid any more than they did. There was like ten minutes of watching the helicopter fly to the house.9.4/10

Edited January 21, 2013 by Kevin Bacon

[The Dark Alfred]

I left with mixed emotions. As a film, it's brilliant. There's tension, good acting, great direction. If it's a fictional story like Homeland, I would say it's damn good cinema. But the film ruins itself before it begins with the first title claiming that it's a real story. It's obviously not and I must say that I'm really disappointed that the most important thing of the whole story remains untold, what the hell happened to the body? The whole film is about the government not being sure if the operation should go ahead and when it does they get conformation solely based on one person? That doesn't make sense and it's clearly not how it played out. According to the film's storyline the last thing they would have done is dumping the body. But that is the official version. Then why claim the film to be real? Why not just make an interpretation of  the story? You're not telling me that one chick identified Osama and that's the end of the story? Where are those pictures that's been taken? The style of the film was documentary and I must say the script is poor, truly bad. Jessica Chastain's character is plain and simple, we don't know learn anything about her, Homeland managed to make me care about the characters in the pilot and everything felt more real even though it's fiction. I felt for Claire Danes, felt nothing for Chastain. Its not her fault, its the screenplay that was weak. I don't like the tone of the film either, Chastain seem to be fighting against the world and all the Washington guys are painted as the annoying headmasters who are having doubt and don't act. Based on the intel they got, they did exactly the right thing, yet the day counting is underlined way too much suggesting that they're sucking in their job. Luckily the film has a strong director, Bigelow did a great job and the third act is absolutely remarkable. Overall I'd say good cinema at parts, fake documentary style, bullshit story, brilliant direction from an awful script.

 

B+

Edited January 26, 2013 by Alfred Unchained

[The Futurist]

This was glorious.

 

The Bigelow snub is more than a travesty, it s a disgrace.

 

What a masterclass in directing and filmmaking this was.

 

Those 2h30 flew by, Chastain was great in a very subdued part except for two scenes, all the cast but man, from a pure directorial stand point, it s fuking unbelievable how each scene is crafted with such detail, class and perfection.

 

Very few filmmakers could have pulled this off, very few ...

 

I wasn't so hot on The Hurt Locker but Bigelow should win for this but we know it can't happen.

 

This movie will be studied in film schools in the years to come, mark my words on this.

 

The first word that came into my mind as Directed By Kathryn Bigelow appeared on the screen was this :

 

"Brilliant, this is fucking brilliant."

 

For once american critics got it right.

[dashrendar44]

I left with mixed emotions. As a film, it's brilliant. There's tension, good acting, great direction. If it's a fictional story like Homeland, I would say it's damn good cinema. But the film ruins itself before it begins with the first title claiming that it's a real story. script.

 

That's my main beef and contention point against this movie. That Mark Boal fucked it up with his "first-hands accounts of actual events" journalistic claim like he wrote a documentary depicting the absolute truth and that makes me sad for Bigelow who keeps on defending herself saying "It's just a movie, artistic license!" but you catch them saying "everything in this movie are the cold hard facts, certified by CIA main protagonists,this is serious business" even if those so called cold hard facts are being debunked by CIA officers, close protagonists and administration officials who themselves did not even come to an agreement about what the real "truth" about all that is.

 

And then those controversial torture scenes, so since it's not a documentary and therefore a fictional story based of somehow true events worked out by the prism of entertainment moviemaking, the "No filmmaker judgement" policy claimed by Bigelow is troublesome and morally questionable since she doesn't want to adress that question. Is that a torture porn then? What's the point of showing those graphic scenes if she has remotely nothing to say about it or do not want to address the issues it raises? 

 

Nothing in the movie showed that "enhanced military intelligence" program is a very dubious process. In fact, they seemed to link the capture of Bin Laden directly with the pieces of intel gathered after torturing a presumed al-Qaeda's accountant about the name of the courier painting that torture program as the main component of the catch (by then, acknowledging and proving its efficiency on one single source somehow, they did it dirty but they did the right thing) when in fact it was deemed incorrect. Also not touched on how they used that program against innocent people, those intels provided by that torture program were doubtful, not reliable nor workable and the process deemed mostly ineffective causing lot of stirred up hierarchy since the beginning of the program in reality as attested by those CIA officers and committee officials. And yet, the filmmakers pretend to obtain fishy facts from official sources. That's a lot of casualness when you pretend to depict reality and nothing else (empty shell of characters as POV) with journalistic accuracy when in fact it rewrites history with lot of shorcuts and fallacies (Boal clearly bought his "first hand accounts" like the Holy Truth and got bullshitted) like any other Hollywood movie...General audience eat it like the unquestionable truth about those actual events since the filmmakers want us to buy it as such. That's called propaganda whether Bigelow/Boal like it or not.

 

The filmmakers cannot, on the one hand, claim authenticity as journalists while, on the other hand, claiming art as an excuse for shoddy reporting about a subject as important as whether torture had a vital part in the search for Bin Laden. And think they can get away with it without facing their own responsability regarding those facts representation and its reliability.

 

Bigelow and Boal sing a very dissonant song, I find myself at odd regarding what I saw in that movie...All because of that damn opening title card.

Edited January 27, 2013 by dashrendar44

[Ozymandias]

Great, great movie.  You can argue against torture on moral grounds all you want, you can't say its not effective.  If you honestly believe that, you're in a bubble.   The CIA has been torturing people at black sites around the world ever since the Cold War began.  This didn't just start with Muslim Jihad extremists.  Basically, I think the movie does an excellent job of letting the viewer decide if torture is worth it or not.  I didn't feel the movie was pro or anti torture at all.  Big props to Bigelow on that.

 

Also, when the prototype stealth helicoptors took off with all the bigass SEAL Team 6 members on it, I couldn't but think of Long Tall Sally from Predator.

 

10/10

 

I left with mixed emotions. As a film, it's brilliant. There's tension, good acting, great direction. If it's a fictional story like Homeland, I would say it's damn good cinema. But the film ruins itself before it begins with the first title claiming that it's a real story. It's obviously not and I must say that I'm really disappointed that the most important thing of the whole story remains untold, what the hell happened to the body? The whole film is about the government not being sure if the operation should go ahead and when it does they get conformation solely based on one person? That doesn't make sense and it's clearly not how it played out. According to the film's storyline the last thing they would have done is dumping the body. But that is the official version. Then why claim the film to be real?

B+

 

 

They didn't release the photo of OBL because it was really graphic and they didn't wanna risk making him a martyr for Muslim extremism by presenting him as a trophy.(I think they should've released the photo anyways so I could jerk off to it though).  There was no way in hell the White House was gonna give Bigelow OBL's dead picture.

 

And you really wanted to see OBL's body dumped off of an aircraft carrier into the ocean?  Uh.... No thanks, the movie ended perfectly.

Edited January 26, 2013 by Shpongle

[GiantCALBears]

Just an FYI, obviously it's fiction. However everything is set up with the facts of what happened (that Mark Boal found out with who he talked to in CIA). I thought it was powerful, exhilarating, with a perfect end point.

[Lordmandeep]

Simply put the film implies...

 

Torture lead to them going after a potential lead on Bin Laden...

 

However getting the lead to connect to Bin Laden was done through old school intelligence.

[dashrendar44]

Simply put the film implies...

 

Torture lead to them going after a potential lead on Bin Laden...

 

However getting the lead to connect to Bin Laden was done through old school intelligence.

 

Yeah it implies those pieces of intel are equally reliable whereas in reality most CIA/FBI executives and agents would argue torture is one of the least effective mean of gathering reliable and valuable intels also time consuming in trying to untie the knots between truth and bullshit spurred out of fear and despair (Arbitrary torture and killing innocent people notwithstanding). And that's the movie's fallacy.

Edited January 27, 2013 by dashrendar44

[The Dark Alfred]

Nope. They way the movie was going it would have made no sense to dump the body. Also it's major hyperbole to suggest that White House relies on one single person's opinion when the whole mission was a no-go for such a long time. It;'s a great fiction based on solely real life events, but claiming it to be is BS. Boal sucks, wrote a very poor script. Homeland is much better in every sense, Claire Danes' character is much better written, Chastain had the most plain and simple character that you can imagine. She did a good job, but I just couldn't feel anything for her. 

[CoolioD1]

I'd agree with you about Homeland if it wasn't for the mind-numbingly stupid second season.

[The Dark Alfred]

I'm not comparing the whole of Homeland to ZDT, that's not a fair comparison. I just pick the pilot, where I could feel for Claire Danes and the other character. Compare to that Maya and the rest of the ZDT cast is poorly written. It might sound that I despised the film. I didn't not. I hated the script an the fake-documentary style. As a movie, I loved it and thought the last 30 minutes were brilliant. But I can't ignore the fact what the film claims to be, so I give it a B+

Edited January 27, 2013 by Alfred Unchained

[Lordmandeep]

Look I am quite happy the film did not go in the even more BS typical hollywood way of...Having the Main character go on this idealistic unrealistic stand about the morality of torture.She was a character who wanted Bin Laden, no matter what.

[dashrendar44]

Look I am quite happy the film did not go in the even more BS typical hollywood way of...Having the Main character go on this idealistic unrealistic stand about the morality of torture.She was a character who wanted Bin Laden, no matter what.

 

Maybe not the main character since it was well known in reality she was headstrong and obsessive about catching Bin laden whatever means necessary but none of the other characters questionned the morality of torture either. Especially when you have Mark Strong's character infuriated that they can't torture anymore to gain intel since detainees are lawyered. And that's problematic because in reality there was clearly dissenting opinions among CIA operatives about the morality of torture. The movie failed to depict that point.

Edited January 28, 2013 by dashrendar44

[Lordmandeep]

I think the film was trying to show the dark side of what we did...It was left to the audience to see what we did was right or wrong imo...