Zero Dark Thirty, an ambiguous title, never explained, is a metaphor for the movie itself.
Beyond the sheer heroism of the Seal team responsible for the ultimate assault, a product of superior men, hand-picked for a team which is called upon for only the most dangerous pursuits, everything else is as ambiguous as the title.
Never before has celluloid been as TWO dimensional as this movie was depicted. We learn nothing of the main characters, a full two-thirds of the movie setting up the eventual assault through the exploits of a heroine who speaks like Rambo, but looks like a "Bond" girl.
It is incredulous to believe that she was recruited out of high school. Is this where the modern CIA finds their best applicants. Did she excel in showing a propensity for killing, or as a dogged pursuer who was a human "bloodhound"? Don't worry, it is never explained.
The ultimate capture seems more a product of dumb luck, than any organized plan. In fact, there are moments we are reminded that the actual hunt promised by Bush, was long forgotten, if it weren't for the actions of one woman who would not stop looking. It was almost as if she was autistic, an idiot savant with one skill, never giving up, but not for any reason that is explained. Jauvert in Les Miserables at least gave his reasons for his single-minded pursuit.
If anything, this movie is one of ironies. No one doubts the malevolence of a man who would plot to kill so many Americans, and did. Then again, this movie never went into the rich fodder of moral ambiguity in the manner that that the Bush Administration ginned up false evidence to turn a terrorist act, a nation-less act, into a war that also killed thousands of innocents in Iraq.
You learned nothing about Bin Laden, his motives, his rationale. You never saw the President, just the liaisons between the CIA, pictured as almost the Keystone cops, hardly inspiring.
The movie was a cardboard cutout, the scenes depicted in chronological order like a security tape with the running time at the bottom. It had no pacing, skipped all over the world and picked mere dates in time, when things happened, no more than a cinematic scrapbook called, "How I killed Bin-Laden".
What is lost so ironically in this movie, is the morality that made "Lincoln" sear the pain of moral ambiguity into anguish. Here, there are just "drone-like" CIA personnel, doing a job, never stopping to see the conflicts between the Geneva Convention, the War Crimes we punished after WWII, and their bullying tactics, ordained by men like Dick Cheyney, as heartless as the movie was.
Cheyney, Bush, Rumsfeld and the Neocons turned a national tragedy into a war for plunder while our Nation was mourning and confused. Movies like the "Green Zone" with Matt Damon have shown how false the intel was to support a war against a Country that administration wanted to wage so badly, only needing a "Pearl Harbor-like excuse" to exploit, and kill innocent civilians, and countless brave American soldiers for false WMD.
The real bad guy was killed off here. What did we learn? The CIA hires, and then "retires" it's no longer needed operatives. I'd say, just ask Hussein and Bin Laden, both on the CIA payroll, but they were retired by "The Company", permanently. Oh, the ironies....
Five stars as a great Mock documentary. No passion, no feelings, except a numb feeling leaving the theater.
Beyond the sheer heroism of the Seal team responsible for the ultimate assault, a product of superior men, hand-picked for a team which is called upon for only the most dangerous pursuits, everything else is as ambiguous as the title.
Never before has celluloid been as TWO dimensional as this movie was depicted. We learn nothing of the main characters, a full two-thirds of the movie setting up the eventual assault through the exploits of a heroine who speaks like Rambo, but looks like a "Bond" girl.
It is incredulous to believe that she was recruited out of high school. Is this where the modern CIA finds their best applicants. Did she excel in showing a propensity for killing, or as a dogged pursuer who was a human "bloodhound"? Don't worry, it is never explained.
The ultimate capture seems more a product of dumb luck, than any organized plan. In fact, there are moments we are reminded that the actual hunt promised by Bush, was long forgotten, if it weren't for the actions of one woman who would not stop looking. It was almost as if she was autistic, an idiot savant with one skill, never giving up, but not for any reason that is explained. Jauvert in Les Miserables at least gave his reasons for his single-minded pursuit.
If anything, this movie is one of ironies. No one doubts the malevolence of a man who would plot to kill so many Americans, and did. Then again, this movie never went into the rich fodder of moral ambiguity in the manner that that the Bush Administration ginned up false evidence to turn a terrorist act, a nation-less act, into a war that also killed thousands of innocents in Iraq.
You learned nothing about Bin Laden, his motives, his rationale. You never saw the President, just the liaisons between the CIA, pictured as almost the Keystone cops, hardly inspiring.
The movie was a cardboard cutout, the scenes depicted in chronological order like a security tape with the running time at the bottom. It had no pacing, skipped all over the world and picked mere dates in time, when things happened, no more than a cinematic scrapbook called, "How I killed Bin-Laden".
What is lost so ironically in this movie, is the morality that made "Lincoln" sear the pain of moral ambiguity into anguish. Here, there are just "drone-like" CIA personnel, doing a job, never stopping to see the conflicts between the Geneva Convention, the War Crimes we punished after WWII, and their bullying tactics, ordained by men like Dick Cheyney, as heartless as the movie was.
Cheyney, Bush, Rumsfeld and the Neocons turned a national tragedy into a war for plunder while our Nation was mourning and confused. Movies like the "Green Zone" with Matt Damon have shown how false the intel was to support a war against a Country that administration wanted to wage so badly, only needing a "Pearl Harbor-like excuse" to exploit, and kill innocent civilians, and countless brave American soldiers for false WMD.
The real bad guy was killed off here. What did we learn? The CIA hires, and then "retires" it's no longer needed operatives. I'd say, just ask Hussein and Bin Laden, both on the CIA payroll, but they were retired by "The Company", permanently. Oh, the ironies....
Five stars as a great Mock documentary. No passion, no feelings, except a numb feeling leaving the theater.