Time and time again films are released under the guise that they are “based on a true story” or something of the sort, but rarely do those films feel authentic. There have been some awful, contrived Hollywood films this year like “The Vow” or “Chasing Mavericks” that just paste that true story onto a cliche structure of a movie we’ve seen a million times before. Sometimes that true story is essential to believing the film, such as in the case of “Argo.” However, it’s rare that a film based on a true story feels so much like viewing the actual events. Save documentaries, it’s hard to accurately convey events while still maintaining an engaging film. Which is what makes “Zero Dark Thirty,” a recounting of the 10-year manhunt to find and assassinate Osama bin Laden, so impressive.
The Oscar-winning team behind 2009’s “The Hurt Locker” (Director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal) have crafted a film that, although full of actors and tailored to work as a film, feels like watching the events from only a few years ago take place. At the same time, it’s an incredibly engaging film that, like “Argo,” keeps you on the edge of your seat even though you know how it ends.
The narrative is simple; the film opens with some devastating 911 recordings from September 11, and continues until the man responsible for them is killed. Much of the first act revolves around the torture and interrogation of detainees associated with bin Laden and al-Qaeda. We’re introduced to our protagonist, CIA analyst Maya (Jessica Chastain), as she observes a number of these sessions. Maya grabs on to a potential lead involving one of bin Laden’s messengers, and spends the next 10 years of her life pursuing it. It feels like a mix of Showtime’s “Homeland” and David Fincher’s “Zodiac;” it’s a film about the process, the massive amounts of work that go into finding these people, and how wrapped up you can become in them. We never see Maya’s family, her friends, her social life: because she has none. This is all she does for those ten years, and you see the toll that takes in her character and especially in Chastain’s performance.
Chastain is phenomenal in the lead, probably the best work she’s done yet, but she also has a great supporting cast behind her. The film is full of actors like Edgar Ramirez, Mark Strong or James Gandolfini that come for only a few scenes but manage to make a big impact. Relative newcomer Jason Clarke is perhaps the most surprising standout, he manages to be terrifying and brutal in the scenes involving torture, and yet outside of them still charismatic and likeable.
Bigelow displays the same talent she had in “The Hurt Locker” for building tension with such simple shots, but here it’s even more refined, with less shaky-cam and a third act that had me almost unable to breathe. Boal as well does a great job condensing down the 10 years into a film that manages to show how long the process took without feeling like an overlong film.
What’s really incredible is all the details in the film that we haven’t really been exposed to before. Boal did a lot of research and uncovering to attempt to make this as accurate as possible. The film opens with a card explaining that information was compiled from various anonymous sources inside the mission, and the film seems to be as close to the truth as possible. They even go through the painstaking process of replicating real locations, most notably bin Laden’s compound, and mixing what they shot in with news footage.
“Zero Dark Thirty” is easily one of the best films of the year, and surely is something that journalists and filmmakers alike can look to for guidance. This is a gripping film that also functions as somewhat of an expose article (it even has a subheading structure throughout), and is anchored by some fantastic performances and great direction. Bigelow and co. may be headed for another Oscar win, and that’d be just fine by me.
4.5/5 Stars