Review of Zero Dark Thirty (2012) by Rocketpackpanda — 12 Jan 2013

Starts and ends well but the core of the film is mediocrity at its finest in film form. The problem with this film is that, Bigelow and Boal want to say so much and yet, they confine themselves too a two and a half hour window.

Boal shows just how much a fish out of water he really is here. The script is a tempermental mess, introducing one character only too abandon them for another as soon as any character development begins to form.

The story itself jumps from plot point to plot point with out any real meat between the set peices. The closest comparison would be a Michael Bay film, in terms of the organization of the film. You see their is really no plot development, no actual emotional connection to anything one sees in this film.

Instead, what you get is a series of events held together with padding. Like Bay it seems Boal wrote the big set pieces first and then linked them through shoddy narrative structure. The set peices mind you are amazing, but everything in between is just lazy filler.

At least Bay tries to infuse his filler with some energy but ZDT, nope. The padding is a barren waste off missed opportunity. Jessica Chaistain is the most evident in this sense of dull acting. She just stands around and looks mildly discomforted by everything.

Mark Strong and Jason Clarke are the only ones who really do any acting. In fact there are only two scenes that really have any life too them, the first being the one where Strong's character, George is first introduced.

There is fire there is energy, life and then... Bigelows drops it all and goes back to morose mild discomfort until the last chunk of the film. The end of the film is really well done. And that is where you see that beyond the ending, this film is simply just another Body of Lies.

It's almost as if Boal wrote this first, in a flurry off maddening genius and Bigelow directed five minutes after he handed it too her and then they wrote the rest of the film. All their energy gone into that last forty minutes, Though as much as I lambaste this film, considering the overly generous praise given to it (especially considering the high quality of The Hurt Locker), it does present an interesting premise.

It would have made one hell of a miniseries! Boal even separates the individual acts almost as if they were episodes. And Bigelow directs each act as if it is an episode of an HBO miniseries, yet sadly, its not.

Instead we have a bloated film, from a writer who couldn't figure out how to write this story beyond scripting the Abbotobad raid. It's a great story. It's just on the wrong screen.