Review: Zero Dark Thirty

Release Date:  January 11, 2012

Running Time: 157 minutes
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Joel Edgerton, Chris Pratt

Who to see it with: Anyone that liked the Hurt Locker.

David: 

This movie was a tough one to review.  It's another movie by the wonderful, two time Oscar winning director Kathryn Bigelow.  She has a great, gritty directorial style that can't help but inject tension into the movie.  The story of Zero Dark Thirty follows (some say, inaccurately) the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.  I don't know about the accuracy of the movie, but what is there is very well done.  The tense scenes are suspenseful, the combat scenes are gritty, and the enhanced interrogation scenes are no holds barred.  The movie builds to the climactic assault on the Abottabad compound which is the most suspenseful scene in the movie.  There is no fanfare here, the assault is an attempt to accurately portray what it would be like to undertake this mission.  I was literally on the edge of my seat during the whole scene.  I think the triumph of this movie is my reaction at the end.  There was no surge of pride or fist pump; at the end of the movie I couldn't tell how I felt, if I was happy, proud, or sad, but I know that I was exhausted from everything that it took to get there.  

See it.