Review of Zero Dark Thirty (2012) by C F — 15 Mar 2015

Zero Dark Thirty is quite the remarkable movie in any number of ways. It's highly controversial but grounds itself in an almost frighteningly real authenticity that must be seen to be believed. The film's ability to captivate its audience and maintain a steady rhythm even with an extended runtime and a foreknowledge of even some of the secondary story items is truly remarkable.

Bigelow's craftsmanship is so good it seems almost beyond the limits of the medium; she captures an essence, an authenticity, an attention to detail, a grittiness, a reality that's incredibly difficult to achieve in film, and she does so by telling a story everybody knows but few really know and even fewer truly understand.

The film is a technical masterpiece and very well performed to boot. It oozes a realism that's rare in cinema, and with that realism comes understandably difficult themes that have generated controversy but that are absolutely necessary to the contextual foundation of the story and critical in recreating as authentic a history as possible.

This is a brilliant film in every regard that, no matter one's stance on the many arguments around it, is well worth the price of admission, and then some.