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EDITOR'S PICK
`Zero
Dark Thirty` - an attempt at self-aggrandisement
Rating: *1/2
Zero Dark Thirty seems to be an American propaganda film as it does
not shed much light on the truth that shrouds the death of Osama bin Laden, the
man America was chasing since Sep 11, 2001. The film, in a nutshell, is
motivational and applauds the CIA`s attempt of a job that America believes, was
brilliantly done after a decade of perseverance.
The film begins like an amateur`s attempt at filmmaking. The white screen simply
states Sep 11, 2001. What follows is a blank screen with a constant rattle of
varying decibels overlapped with voices. The audio gets deafening and
incomprehensible leaving you disgruntled and agitated.
The film leaps to 2003 in Saudi Arabia, in a place that does not exist, a black
site. Maya (Jessica Chastain) watches as her colleague Dan (Jason Clarke)
interrogates an Arab prisoner (Reda Kateb) who they suspect of having
connections with Bin Laden. If you lie to me, I hurt you. I am not your
friend. I am going to break you, Dan yells at the prisoner, who is bound,
bruised, and not telling the Americans what they need to know. These early
scenes are uncomfortable and horrific.
As the film progresses, the next forty minutes is cantankerous, torture-ridden
and verbose with conversation having no link or making any sense. Initially,
finding the thread to the narration is similar to the CIA`s mission of finding
the brain behind the 9/11 attack - a needle in the haystack.
The narration finds stability in the last one hour when it introduces a human
element. The long narrative marvelously settles on Maya and her dispassionate
account of how she slowly, obsessively and inexorably moves closer and closer
towards her goal.
She navigates a treacherous puzzle of dishonest suspects, coded names and
suicide bombers, who know how to wriggle their way into a US safety zone. Some
of her strategy is almost funny, as when she gets Dan, back in the States, to
hit up the agency for 200 grand - all to buy a Lamborghini for a stooge in
Kuwait who will provide a key phone number.
Luckily for her, she finds allies in the CIA director (James Gandolfini), who is
impressed by her intelligence, intensity and brutally frank talk, and later also
with the sardonic Navy SEALS who are tasked with bringing the fire directly to
Bin Laden.
Mark Boal`s script carefully manipulates historical terrorist attacks and flits
from being a detective story to a thriller. The sequence of events that occurs
in Pakistan, Britain, Poland, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Abbotabad in Pakistan
smoothly fits like a jigsaw puzzle and the mission is accomplished at half past
twelve. The film`s title is a military time reference.
As the central character, Chastain gives what might very well be her best
performance to date. But in spite of her intelligence, intensity and brutally
frank talk it becomes hard to relate to Maya, as it is unimaginable - the
choices she has to make with her position within the CIA.
Aside from Chastian, the rest of the cast is equally impressive. Jason Clarke is
perfect as a man who is assigned to torture Kateb.
Kyle Chandler as the dismissive US Embassy Station Chief in Pakistan; Mark
Strong as the hard-to-convince boss at the CIA`s Virginia headquarters; Stephen
Dillane as the twice-shy National Security Advisor, and James Gandolfini as the
CIA director are worth a mention.
While the cinematographer Greig Fraser has captured the visuals effectively,
there seem to be a couple of goof-ups at the production end. The market place
and road scenes, which are passed off as Pakistan, clearly indicate that those
were shot in India and similarly, some other locations lack authenticity.
If, in Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow seeks to tell the story as
it occurred, then Hollywood obviously has a clear-cut agenda.`