A chronicle of the decade-long hunt for al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden after the September 2001 attacks, and his death at the hands of the Navy S.E.A.L.s Team 6 in May 2011.
During the Iraq War, a Sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is put at odds with his squad mates due to his maverick way of handling his work.
Director:
Kathryn Bigelow
Stars:
Jeremy Renner,
Anthony Mackie,
Brian Geraghty
160 elite U.S. soldiers drop into Somalia to capture two top lieutenants of a renegade warlord and find themselves in a desperate battle with a large force of heavily-armed Somalis.
Navy S.E.A.L. sniper Chris Kyle's pinpoint accuracy saves countless lives on the battlefield and turns him into a legend. Back home to his wife and kids after four tours of duty, however, Chris finds that it is the war he can't leave behind.
Marcus Luttrell and his team set out on a mission to capture or kill notorious Taliban leader Ahmad Shah, in late June 2005. Marcus and his team are left to fight for their lives in one of the most valiant efforts of modern warfare.
In the high-stakes world of political power-brokers, Elizabeth Sloane is the most sought after and formidable lobbyist in D.C. But when taking on the most powerful opponent of her career, she finds winning may come at too high a price.
Director:
John Madden
Stars:
Jessica Chastain,
Mark Strong,
Gugu Mbatha-Raw
Acting under the cover of a Hollywood producer scouting a location for a science fiction film, a CIA agent launches a dangerous operation to rescue six Americans in Tehran during the U.S. hostage crisis in Iran in 1979.
The true story of Captain Richard Phillips and the 2009 hijacking by Somali pirates of the U.S.-flagged MV Maersk Alabama, the first American cargo ship to be hijacked in two hundred years.
Director:
Paul Greengrass
Stars:
Tom Hanks,
Barkhad Abdi,
Barkhad Abdirahman
Maya is a CIA operative whose first experience is in the interrogation of prisoners following the Al Qaeda attacks against the U.S. on the 11th September 2001. She is a reluctant participant in extreme duress applied to the detainees, but believes that the truth may only be obtained through such tactics. For several years, she is single-minded in her pursuit of leads to uncover the whereabouts of Al Qaeda's leader, Osama Bin Laden. Finally, in 2011, it appears that her work will pay off, and a U.S. Navy SEAL team is sent to kill or capture Bin Laden. But only Maya is confident Bin Laden is where she says he is.Written by
Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>
Of the many books she researched in preparation for her role as CIA operative Maya, Jessica Chastain found two of particular interest, namely, "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11" by Lawrence Wright and "'Osama bin Laden'" by Michael Scheuer. See more »
Goofs
A sign board with Shimla (hill station in India), Panchkula (near Chandigarh,India) can be seen during the secret stalking of Abu Ahmed's white SUV by the CIA. See more »
Rise Up (Featuring Tom Morello)
Written by Senen Reyes, B-Real (as Louise Freese), Demrick (as Demrick Shelton Ferm), Tom Morello (as Thomas Morello)
Performed by Cypress Hill feat. Tom Morello
Courtesy of Capitol Records, LLC
Under license from EMI Film & TV Music See more »
Mrs. Bigelow is obsessed with obsession. Blue Steel, Point Break, the Hurt Locker, now Zero Dark Thirty. The background of the story changes, but the story remains the same. Behind different faces, the same obsessive character. The obsession portrayed in her films actually is quite simplistic and straightforward, but anyhow, in our time her "oeuvres" are considered as deep, realistic, and arty. After an adrenaline fix come the inevitable frustration and emptiness of living, Mrs. Bigelow shows it to us over and over again; her hero has a conniving streak in him/her, but a hero nevertheless. She's so focused on her obsessed character, it's easy for her to claim that the Iraq war film she made was apolitical, and ZDT, a political thriller, has no political agenda.
Mr. Boal is a journalist. When he begins to write stories for the big screen, we praise his "journalistic approach", and we can easily forget that, as most journalists these days in the US, Mr. Boal is an embedded journalist.
Unlike the Hurt Locker, which, by opening with a quote from Chris Hedges, gives a false impression of an antiwar movie, ZDT is at least honest. At the very beginning it gives us a warning:
"Based on first-hand accounts of actual events"
Aka what CIA told us and what CIA wants you to see.
The decade-long war on terror seen through a CIA agent's eyes, the whole film is shaped into a CIA narrative. As Mrs. Bigelow wrote in her LA Times article, defining ZDT's raison d'être:
"we should never discount and never forget the thousands of innocent lives lost on 9/11 and subsequent terrorist attacks. We should never forget the brave work of those professionals in the military and intelligence communities who paid the ultimate price in the effort to combat a grave threat to this nation's safety and security."
How many times do you hear this from a CIA/Pentagon/WH spokesperson?
Yes never discount and never forget the victims of 9/11, we heard their voices; we saw the London bus bombing survivors bloody faced, eager to share their story. But we can well forget hundreds of thousands innocent civilians killed by US forces in the past ten years, not single one of them had a place in this film. We saw angry Pakistanis gathered in front of American embassy, jumping like savages. But we would not see those CIA drone strikes, bombing Pakistani wedding, killing women and children. "They hate us for our freedom!" we saw Mayor Bloomberg repeat Bush's line. Yes never forget the brave work of those professionals in the CIA, they worked their ass out torturing terrorists, what a psychological trauma it would be watching so many naked men every day? But we can certainly forget there was also innocent people got kidnapped, tortured by these brave professionals. Forget torture is a war crime, we got Ben Laden.
"Those of us who work in the arts know that depiction is not endorsement." Mrs. Bigelow defends her film in her LA Times piece. No Mrs. Bigelow, your film is not art. There's no art without truth.
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Mrs. Bigelow is obsessed with obsession. Blue Steel, Point Break, the Hurt Locker, now Zero Dark Thirty. The background of the story changes, but the story remains the same. Behind different faces, the same obsessive character. The obsession portrayed in her films actually is quite simplistic and straightforward, but anyhow, in our time her "oeuvres" are considered as deep, realistic, and arty. After an adrenaline fix come the inevitable frustration and emptiness of living, Mrs. Bigelow shows it to us over and over again; her hero has a conniving streak in him/her, but a hero nevertheless. She's so focused on her obsessed character, it's easy for her to claim that the Iraq war film she made was apolitical, and ZDT, a political thriller, has no political agenda.
Mr. Boal is a journalist. When he begins to write stories for the big screen, we praise his "journalistic approach", and we can easily forget that, as most journalists these days in the US, Mr. Boal is an embedded journalist.
Unlike the Hurt Locker, which, by opening with a quote from Chris Hedges, gives a false impression of an antiwar movie, ZDT is at least honest. At the very beginning it gives us a warning:
"Based on first-hand accounts of actual events"
Aka what CIA told us and what CIA wants you to see.
The decade-long war on terror seen through a CIA agent's eyes, the whole film is shaped into a CIA narrative. As Mrs. Bigelow wrote in her LA Times article, defining ZDT's raison d'être:
"we should never discount and never forget the thousands of innocent lives lost on 9/11 and subsequent terrorist attacks. We should never forget the brave work of those professionals in the military and intelligence communities who paid the ultimate price in the effort to combat a grave threat to this nation's safety and security."
How many times do you hear this from a CIA/Pentagon/WH spokesperson?
Yes never discount and never forget the victims of 9/11, we heard their voices; we saw the London bus bombing survivors bloody faced, eager to share their story. But we can well forget hundreds of thousands innocent civilians killed by US forces in the past ten years, not single one of them had a place in this film. We saw angry Pakistanis gathered in front of American embassy, jumping like savages. But we would not see those CIA drone strikes, bombing Pakistani wedding, killing women and children. "They hate us for our freedom!" we saw Mayor Bloomberg repeat Bush's line. Yes never forget the brave work of those professionals in the CIA, they worked their ass out torturing terrorists, what a psychological trauma it would be watching so many naked men every day? But we can certainly forget there was also innocent people got kidnapped, tortured by these brave professionals. Forget torture is a war crime, we got Ben Laden.
"Those of us who work in the arts know that depiction is not endorsement." Mrs. Bigelow defends her film in her LA Times piece. No Mrs. Bigelow, your film is not art. There's no art without truth.