Zero Dark Thirty
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Joel Edgerton
Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Rating: 5/5
Kathryn Bigelow made history with her last movie The Hurt Locker as she became the first woman to win the Best Director Oscar and now she is back.
Zero Dark Thirty marks her return to the director’s chair for the first time since that success and she has delivered another knockout film.
The film sees her reunite with scriptwriter Mark Boal and work with actress Jessica Chastain to follow the world’s greatest manhunt.
Spanning a decade the film follows Maya and
an elite team of intelligence and military operatives, working in secret across the globe, who devoted themselves to a single goal: to find and eliminate Osama bin Laden.
Zero Dark Thirty is a triumph and is totally gripping from start to finish - we may all know how the story ends but it no less riveting to find out how they got there.
Jessica Chastain delivers the best performance of her career to date in what is a tour do force turn by the actress.
This is a movie that is told very much through the eyes of this agent who makes it her personal quest to bring down Bin Laden - a quest that takes a personal toll as well as putting her in the firing line.
Chastain takes audiences on an emotional journey as she is a woman who is pushed to the edge in a male dominated world and she fights to get her voice heard.
She really does anchor the film and gives the audience someone to really root for and care for and we need to see more roles this this for women.
There are some great support turns from Jason Clarke, Mark Strong and Kyle Chandler but this movie really does belong to Chastain.
Zero Dark Thirty is a film that has been surrounded in controversy because of the torture scenes that exist at the beginning of the film.
Bigelow and co in no way glorifies of the supports the idea of using torture to gain in formation it merely accepts that this can be a reality in modern day warfare.
This is a movie that is sharply written and Bigelow really does have a no nonsense directing style that keeps the film moving along at a great pace.
157 minutes does sound like a beefy run time but it really does fly by as Bigelow notches up the tension and the momentum with every scene.
The last twenty minutes are a real pay off as we see the U.S. military storm the house where Osama Bin Laden is hiding and it really is a gripping watch - even if we do know how it all ends.
Zero Dark Thirty is a movie that was one of the most highly anticipated of 2013 and it really does not disappoint as it is a tremendous piece of war cinema.
Bigelow is back at her very best and she really does extract a wonderful central performance from Chastain who deserves to get her hands on the Best Actress Oscar.
Zero Dark Thirty is out now
Tagged in Kathryn Bigelow Jessica Chastain