Zero Dark Thirty

               

            Imagine if you read a really good book, but you already knew how it ended. Would it make the book any less engaging to read?  That was the challenge of “Zero Dark Thirty”, how do you keep people into something when they already know how it all ends? You do it by letting them see how intense one of the largest manhunts in history ever went down.

        Maya (Jessica Chastain) is a fresh recruit who is sent to Afghanistan in 2002, to help find the people responsible for the attacks of 9/11. She joins Dan (Jason Clarke) who is already using any method he can to extract information from detainees. Maya at first looks a little uncomfortable watching the methods used to get what is needed, but doesn’t take long to fit in. Maya find a lead that she thinks will help the C.I.A find Osama Bin Laden, and she follows that lead wherever it takes her. From 2002 to 2010 she follows the trail until she gets the break she needs, now if she can only get everyone else to be as sure as she is that she has found what they are looking for. Maya waits as government bureaucracy does what it does best and delays her from getting her target. The good thing is we all know what happens; now we get to see how it happened.

       “Zero Dark Thirty” is as good as you have heard it is. Written by Mark Boal, (The Hurt Locker) the movie is a thriller all thrillers try and be. While watching you will not want to get up to go to the bathroom during its two-plus hour running time, for fear you might miss something. The film is broken up in chapters, to help lead you up to some of the tensest minutes I have seen in a movie all year. The attack on the compound will keep one hundred percent of your attention. Director Kathryn Bigelow shows that she was not a one hit wonder with “The Hurt Locker” and proves she is one of the better directors out there. It makes you forgive her for making “K-19 The Widowmaker” (raise your hand if you remember that one). “Zero Dark Thirty” has made many top ten list this year and it won’t take you long to see why. From beginning to end there are not many things you will find wrong. Going into this I had high expectations, and didn’t know if this film would live up to them. When the film ended and the screen went to black, I knew I was wrong, because somehow it exceeded those high expectations. Don’t be the last to see this movie, be the first, because even if you know the ending, this movie is so worth the ride.

 Brian Taylor