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Zero Dark Thirty Movie Review


Back in 2010, "Inception" was the movie, I was so intrigued to watch and to beat the sh*t out of the directional marvel called "Inception", we have "Zero Dark Thirty" in theaters now. This is an out and out director's movie, where she(Kathryn Bigelow) spins the movie characters with true grit in the typical American panache.

The positives:
1)Second half - (I bet, you will be either sitting on the edge of your seat or biting your nails away - such a riveting narration and story line. You are sure to get lost into the world of Maya(literally), at any point in the movie you can feel that you are in Abottabad area under your purview)
2)The scene where Edgar Ramirez(Larry) & co tries to locate Abu Ahmed in a crowded Pakistani market area with the help of mobile call tracing(or sensing) facility is piping hot. You, yourself will be doing the job of searching Abu Ahmed in the crowd.
3)In the first half, there is a scene where Maya & Jessica sits in Marriott Hotel for a little chat. The bomb blast in the next scene which brings the front side of the hotel down was just perfect, I mean no body would have expected the blast in that lighter socializing moment(Although in theory, everybody knows about 2005 bomb blast).
4)Jessica Chastain as Maya: You know what -  that is how a girl should be, completely determined, cut out of outer world and pleasure until she reaches her goal. What a marvelous role custom made for Jessica Chastain. Kudos to the director/writer for making such a strong role. I'm sure every girl would like to be Maya. I definitely did.
5)Another interesting character is CIA interrogation officer Jason Clarke, who treats monkeys as human and human as his ping-pong ball is a revelation. He just lives the role and you cannot complain his actions either -because sometimes torture does work, what a discovery!
6)Last 30 minutes: Don't you dare blink for a moment. Yes, there is no other movie made in the whole world that would give you such a pain, doubt, tears, happiness, sadness, scariness all at the same time even though you may very well know the end, but the last 30 minutes makes you re-live the hell. I'm sure you will visualize yourself as one of those NAVY SEALs wanting to take down Bin Laden. The NAVY SEAL lead Joel Edgerton stood out from the rest.

The negatives:
1)Movie duration - 160 minutes - (I have no complaints though(having got used to Indian movies), just a general opinion)
2)Audio is a bit jagged especially in the first half - (If you guys get a chance, please do watch the movie in IMAX(for audio quality). I watched it in Q cinemas - may be that is the problem.)
3)First half - (I totally understand that, 10 years of tiresome and exhausting manhunt yielded the final result, so as to extract the "9 and a half years" to fit into the first half of the movie is no easy task, but the exhaustive research is shown in bits and pieces with no glue to stick them together. This is actually passable.)
4)Language usage - Well, when Arabic(or any other language other than English) words are being spoken, the viewer would definitely like to know what the heck is going on even if the conversation is only a formality between protagonists, so a subtitle is very much required, which unfortunately was not provided.

Critic's critic: Yeah, right - people may say, torture should not be used as a base to extract information, then you tell me what other way we can employ to confront a terrorist(with love or what?)? The ones who comment are not the ones who beholds the job of extracting information, they sit at home, watch a movie and easily pass hideous 'no-human-rights-violation-allowed' comments.
Having said that - yes, the torture scenes are very much realistic, so do not take kids or the weak hearted along with, that is it.

Verdict: PLEASE DO WATCH THIS AMAZING FILM FOR AMERICAN MIGHT , GRIT AND DETERMINATION. Hats off to Kathryn Bigelow.

Image courtesy: Internet

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