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Critics Consensus: Gripping, suspenseful, and brilliantly crafted, Zero Dark Thirty dramatizes the hunt for Osama bin Laden with intelligence and an eye for detail.
Critic Consensus: Gripping, suspenseful, and brilliantly crafted, Zero Dark Thirty dramatizes the hunt for Osama bin Laden with intelligence and an eye for detail.
All Critics (283) | Top Critics (52) | Fresh (258) | Rotten (25) | 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.
It's an effective thriller - uninterested in anyone other than the home team.
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.
What it does succeed in doing, however, is capturing the melancholy, tension and uncertainty of one of America's most difficult decades.
There's no show-boating or wasted time here -- this is a case where well-researched art makes us believe we're watching something that is true.
A restrained, world-weary impression of the various American attempts (from torture, interrogation, surveillance, and the final hi-tech marine raid) to track down bin Laden.
While the film feels cold, it has a real sense of unpredictability and danger, without any glorification or glamorization.
There is a fair amount of information here, and some exciting moments, too, even though we all know how this story ends.
Zero Dark Thirty is an emotional thrill ride; a film that shows you what it wants you to see and lets you decide your moral stance.
Seems like one of the most anticipated and best movie of 2012 is one of the movies that i didnt enjoy! For me although there was alot going on, action and fantastic acting there just didnt seem to moving and i felt bored throughout the movie. Majorly disappointed may watch again with lower expectations!
Super Reviewer
Some of the dialogue may be a bit repetitious, but Bigelow's direction is very effective and she knows how to maintain a constant level of nerve-racking tension in this descriptive (and essentially objective) account of a historical operation whose end is already known.
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.
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.
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