Zero Dark Thirty
by Robbo
Posted on 17 August 2021
Rating -
Zero Dark Thirty is a 2012 American thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal.
The film dramatizes the nearly decade-long international manhunt for Osama bin Laden, leader of terrorist network Al-Qaeda, after the September 11 attacks. This search leads to the discovery of his compound in Pakistan and the military raid where bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011.
Jessica Chastain stars as Maya, a fictional CIA intelligence analyst, with Jason Clarke, Joel Edgerton, Reda Kateb, Mark Strong, James Gandolfini, Kyle Chandler, Stephen Dillane, Chris Pratt, Édgar Ramírez, Fares Fares, Jennifer Ehle, John Barrowman, Mark Duplass, Harold Perrineau, and Frank Grillo in supporting roles.
Maya is a CIA analyst tasked with finding the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. In 2003, she is stationed at the U.S. embassy in Pakistan where she attends the black site interrogations of Ammar (Reda Kateb) who provides unreliable information on a suspected attack in Saudi Arabia, but reveals the name of the personal courier for bin Laden, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti.
Other detainee intelligence connects courier traffic by Abu Ahmed between Abu Faraj al-Libbi and bin Laden. In 2005, Faraj denies knowing about a courier named Abu Ahmed; Maya interprets this as an attempt by Faraj to conceal the importance of Abu Ahmed.
A Jordanian detainee claims to have buried Abu Ahmed in 2001 but Maya learns what the CIA was told five years earlier: Ibrahim Sayeed traveled under the name of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. Realizing her lead may be alive, Maya speculates that the CIA’s photograph of Ahmed is that of his brother, Habeeb, who was killed in Afghanistan. Maya says that their beards and native clothes make the brothers look alike, explaining the account of Ahmed’s “death” in 2001.
A Kuwaiti prince trades the phone number of Sayeed’s mother for a Lamborghini Gallardo Bicolore. Maya and her CIA team in Pakistan use electronic methods to eventually pinpoint a caller in a moving vehicle who exhibits behaviors that delay confirmation of his identity (which Maya calls tradecraft, thus confirming that the subject is likely a senior courier). They track the vehicle to a large urban compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. After gunmen attack Maya while she is in her vehicle, she is recalled to Washington, D.C. as her cover is believed blown.
The CIA puts the compound under surveillance, but obtains no conclusive identification of bin Laden. The President’s National Security Advisor tasks the CIA with creating a plan to capture or kill bin Laden. Before briefing President Barack Obama, the CIA director holds a meeting of his senior officers, who estimate that bin Laden is 60–80% likely to be in the compound. Maya, also in the meeting, places her confidence at 100%.
On May 2, 2011, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment flies two stealth helicopters from Afghanistan into Pakistan with members of DEVGRU and the CIA’s Special Activities Division to raid the compound. The SEALs gain entry and kill a number of people in the compound, including a man whom they believe is bin Laden. At a U.S. base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, Maya confirms the identity of the corpse.
Zero Dark Thirty is a gripping thriller which slowly builds the suspense, based on real events it isn’t over dramatic.
It faithfully tells the story of the hundreds of agents working behind the scenes to bring Bin Laden to justice for the September 11 attacks.
The film pulls no punches in it’s brutally accurate depiction of the ruthless and unsavory side of war. It asks the question ‘does the end justify the means?’, and in this instance, it does.
Although Chastain is the main protagonist and delivers an honest performance, she is ably supported by an ensemble cast.
Although the opening scenes are not great film making it eventually proves itself and is overall a really good film.
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