Zero Dark Thirty (2013)
TOMATOMETER
Critics Consensus: Gripping, suspenseful, and brilliantly crafted, Zero Dark Thirty dramatizes the hunt for Osama bin Laden with intelligence and an eye for detail.
Critics Consensus: Gripping, suspenseful, and brilliantly crafted, Zero Dark Thirty dramatizes the hunt for Osama bin Laden with intelligence and an eye for detail.
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For a decade, an elite team of intelligence and military operatives, working in secret across the globe, devoted themselves to a single goal: to find and eliminate Osama bin Laden. Zero Dark Thirty reunites the Oscar winning team of director-producer Kathryn Bigelow and writer-producer Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker) for the story of history's greatest manhunt for the world's most dangerous man. -- (C) Official Site- Rating:
- R (for strong violence including brutal disturbing images, and for language)
- Genre:
- Drama
- Directed By:
- Kathryn Bigelow
- Written By:
- Mark Boal
- In Theaters:
- Jan 11, 2013 Wide
- On DVD:
- Mar 19, 2013
- US Box Office:
- $95.7M
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Cast
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Jessica Chastain
as Maya -
Jason Clarke
as Dan -
Joel Edgerton
as Patrick - Squadron T... -
Edgar Ramirez
as Larry From Ground Br... -
Kyle Chandler
as Joseph Bradley -
Mark Strong
as George
Related News & Features
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Digital Multiplex: Zero Dark Thirty and Les Misérables
– Rotten Tomatoes
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LoginCritic Reviews for Zero Dark Thirty
All Critics (253) | Top Critics (50) | Fresh (236) | Rotten (17) | DVD (3)
If you like World War II films, you'll enjoy this.
What's striking is the absence of triumphalism -- Bigelow doesn't shy away from showing the victims shot down in cold blood in the compound -- and we come away with the overwhelming sense that this has been a grim, dark episode in our history.
This is an instant classic.
Chastain makes Maya as vivid as a bloodshot eye. Her porcelain skin, delicate features and feminine attire belie the steel within.
No doubt Zero Dark Thirty serves a function by airing America's dirty laundry about detainee and torture programs, but in its wake, there's a crying need for a compassionate Coming Home to counter its brutal Deer Hunter.
While "Zero Dark Thirty" may offer political and moral arguing points aplenty, as well as vicarious thrills,as a film it's simply too much of a passable thing.
The film, much like it's heroine played by Jessica Chastain (The Help), is steely-resolved with eyes only for the task at hand.
Even without getting a Hollywood makeover, the story has inherent drama, suspense, and thrills, which Bigelow lets arise naturally.
A historical timeline, a pulsating thriller, a moving character study and a true-life violent revenge story, all in one, told in a sweating, oppressive, strangling fashion.
Zero Dark Thirty is truly one of the best films of 2012. In my list, it is the best...
"Zero Dark Thirty" shows guts in taking on loaded subject matter and filmmaking confidence and skill in not telling us how we should feel about it.
It provides a much needed catharsis for what was done to nearly 3,000 innocent Americans at the behest of a mass-murdering religious zealot.
...a somber, black-winged benediction for what we might count as a lost decade.
Unsettling and unforgettable...challenges the justifications of war's ugly atrocities, without resorting to jingoistic platitudes.
a brilliant high tech treatment of the subject and the classified nature of the disclosures
A film of infectious urgency, questionable accuracy, murky morality and undeniable emotional and intellectual power
Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty is a grueling masterpiece that captures the hunt for bin Laden with a daunting amount of realism and efficiency.
The direction by Kathryn Bigelow, who won Oscars for Best Film and Best Director in her previous film "The Hurt Locker," is fierce and focused...
Indulges Cheneyian fantasies complete with the bad-movie scene of the prisoner's defiance: "You're just a garbage man in the corporation," shouts the Arab who needs a lesson in manners from the Ph.D. (in torture?) who is racking him.
Bigelow tells the story very well, very efficiently, but doesn't really say much about it, which is ironic given the response to the film in some quarters.
Kathryn Bigelow takes the procedural model and brushes away every unnecessary detail, leaving behind a heavy, blunt object of a film that is also hugely watchable, engrossing and, best of all... highly suspenseful.
Rotten Tomatoes notes that I agree with Tomatometer critics 80 percent of the time, but this is one of those times I have to part ways with them.
Bigelow has directed excellent movies before, but this deserves to be remembered as the film that established her as a master.
You can't deny that what Zero Dark Thirty sets out to do, it does excellently.
An exhilarating and compelling historical document worthy of praise.
Audience Reviews for Zero Dark Thirty
Never let fact stand in the way of a good story. I said the same when United 93 came out, I don't necessarily believe any of it but I thought that was a good movie all the same. I like Kathryn Bigelow, she's a very talented director but I'm not sure I want her making a film like this and claim it is fact. Simply put, I don't really trust her. She's an action director, suited only for action films, the odd war film included but for films based on current political events I want a documentarian, actually several, to make their films first before we get the dodgy 'based on real events' actioner. She's not great with actors either, I do not believe she got the best of everyone, I know Jessica Chastain won awards but I thought she wasn't great at all. I think the subject matter won the awards, it's the first film of hers that I haven't liked. The scene where she swears at James Gandolfini is pure Break Point. I like Break Point but it belongs in the cheesy 80's, not in a political film about current world events. Even if this wasn't a film based on 'Actual events', the beginning is overlong and many of the key points are rushed, leaving the whole production unbalanced and unconvincing. I remember watching a film critic on TV saying how wonderful it was but wishes that we could have seen Bin Laden's face at the end of the film. The fact that he would say that and applaud the film at the same time tells you all you need to know about how lazy society has become. Question everything and don't let people choose the question for you and don't listen to half answers (or half-assed answers). Zero Dark Thirty doesn't ask the right answers and doesn't answer the ones it does ask. Global success in just one country isn't really global success now is it.
http://cinephilecrocodile.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/zero-dark-thirty-dir-bigelow-2012-never.html
Super Reviewer
What defines this film is its controversial depiction of torture,but what it unearths is much more harrowing and heroic than terrifying. The story revolves around CIA agent Maya, who aims to finish a decades long manhunt for Osama bin Laden while stationed in Pakistan, starting in 2003. Critics are inarguably split on whether they believe the torture depicted in this film is shown as essential in the capture of wanted terrorists, or an accurate portrayal of torture tactics in all their inhumane glory. The characters in the film certainly feel that torturing detainees helps in the process, but it's left vague whether the filmmaker supports this tactic. The story is entertaining on its own merit, helped by the ferocious performance of Chastain, and the unraveling of the mystery right before our eyes. The intricacy of bin Laden's extraction at the hands of the Navy SEAL team was especially interesting to watch, and was supposedly very truthful in its depiction. There's an emotional component for anyone imbibed in post-9/11 dialogue, but there's also entertainment in the planning and investigation behind the scenes.
MoreSuper Reviewer
Not my favorite subject matter, but watched it anyway because of the reviews. I thought that it was strong in terms of acting but I just couldn't buy the fact that they went after bin Laden on a hunch by one single CIA agent. But of course, they had to do it this way because if not then it would've been a documentary I suppose. I think the story to be told is intriguing and relevant but the filmmakers just didn't satisfy me with this adaptation.
MoreSuper Reviewer
Zero Dark Thirty is the true life story centred around the obsessive CIA analyst who was most responsible for locating Osama Bin Laden. Katheryn Bigelow's Oscar winner is very much like a combination of her previous film The Hurt Locker and The Wire. The bulk of the film is made up of cold-war style spy-duggery as telephones are tapped and suspects trailed to the door of America's most wanted. In fact she does not shy away from the dubious tactics employed by the US in extracting information from its persons of interest, although one would have to say that although the film does not condone these actions, it falls short of condemning them as well. This information gathering section of the film can feel a little dry and over long because of the lack of human drama, but it's all leading up to a nail biting, documentary-style piece de resistance as we participate in the raid on Bin Laden's compound in gripping detail, which Bigelow presents as little more than an execution than a fire fight. I was dubious of the central character's emotional outburst at the close, as if a woman were only capable of emotionally expressing herself through tears, but it's a fascinating piece of recent history that is refreshing in its lack of gung-ho, US of A brand flag waving.
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Super Reviewer
Zero Dark Thirty Quotes
- Joseph Bradley:
- What the fuck we have done about it?
- Dan:
- What the fuck do you think is going on, Ammar?
- Maya:
- I'm the motherfucker that found this place, sir.
- Maya:
- But bin Laden is there. And you're gonna kill him for me.
- Maya:
- I believe I was spared so that I could finish the job.
- Maya:
- Hello, I work with him. I'm not that girl that fucks.
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