This review will be brief. Unfortunately, I need to be more well-versed to write a comprehensive review of this movie. I certainly can’t write one as well as a critic who reviews movies as their profession. I’m sure I can’t write one as well as somebody who knows the facts of the takedown of Osama bin Laden. Like the movie Lincoln, this movie is an important educational tool and should be seen by many, but as a vehicle of entertainment, it underwhelms. I told my friends after our viewing that I’m growing a little tired of movies being an hour or longer than they need to be. This is the case with Zero Dark Thirty. Not only was it over two and a half hours long, but it felt like it was two movies in one.

Now I will say that the last 30-40 minutes (all shot in real-time) are worth the price of admission alone. To appreciate the mission and infiltration of the compound bin Laden was living at, you don’t need to see the first hour and a half. The movie’s first half is entirely different from the second half. I can appreciate director Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Point Break) wanting us to know just how hard it was to gather intelligence about Al Qaida and all of its operatives. I also appreciate her trying to show us that locating bin Laden was like finding a needle in a massive haystack. I also know Bigelow already had a bin Laden story and characters for a different movie penned when the news of his death happened. Thus she changed the story she would tell in favor of this one. That is good. That is what I would have done too. Yet, because Zero Dark Thirty plays out as almost two distinct movies, you can’t help but wonder if she was too unwilling to abandon her original script in favor of this new one. I get that a film like Zero Dark Thirty or Lincoln needs to be longer than a movie like Dude, Where’s My Car, but just because it is longer and has more time to tell a complete story doesn’t mean I have to like it anymore.

As good as Jessica Chastain (The Help, Take Shelter) was in her breakout in 2011, in which she starred in four movies that earned more than $10 million at the box office domestically, she wasn’t great in Zero Dark Thirty. Chastain plays Maya, a CIA agent who believes what she wants to think and says what she wants to say. Like most of the characters in the movie, Maya is based loosely on a real-life person (this was primarily done to protect the identities of the individuals involved and also to allow them to keep doing their jobs in the same fashion that they have been doing them their whole lives). She is intelligent, anxious, irritable, manacle, and miserable all at once. You don’t know much about her history (other than she was recruited by the CIA when she was in high school), and you don’t really care. You don’t develop emotional ties to any of the characters in this movie. This most likely was intentional on the part of Bigelow. Her three main characters in The Hurt Locker were exceptionally well-developed. Not only did The Hurt Locker put Bigelow on the map, but it also did for its man two stars (Jeremy Renner – The Town, The Bourne Legacy and Anthony Mackie – The Adjustment Bureau, Real Steel). I find it a little ridiculous that Chastain was nominated and most likely will win the Best Actress Academy Award simply because her character was the lead agent in the world’s most crucial of all time. The Seal Team 6 members were introduced at the final 45 minutes, and even then, they were hardly distinguishable from one another. As an audience, I think we were so drained up until that point with trying to understand everything that the different characters were trying to say and do that we were ready to be propelled straight through the getting to know you stage right up until the helicopter touched the ground outside of bin Laden’s compound.

Just because a movie is based upon a true story and because it is nominated for Best Picture doesn’t mean it’s for everyone. If you want to be entertained, dozens of movies that came out in 2012 are better. On the other hand, if you are looking for a bunch of procedural bureaucracy to halt the delivery of what had the potential to be a decent movie, you’ve found what you are looking for.

Plot 7.5/10
Character Development 5/10
Character Chemistry 5/10
Acting 5/10
Screenplay 5/10
Directing  5/10
Cinematography 9/10
Sound 8/10
Hook and Reel 6/10
Universal Relevance 10/10
65.5%

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