Last last year the National Geographic Channel aired a
docu-drama based on the Navy Seal raid that killed the Al-Qaeda terrorist
leader and mastermind of the September 11th attacks, Osama bin
Laden. The film was told from the
perspective of the soldiers who initiated the raid, Seal Team Six. It aired just two days before the
Presidential election and was produced by Harvey Weinstein, a major supporter
of the President’s. Naturally it created
a furor as some assumed it would be a late-inning puff piece intended to
influence undecided voters towards the President. Well, needless to say, it’s doubtful that the
docu-drama did anything to sway voters in any direction, even though it did
accentuate the President’s leadership.
Two months later, the big budget Hollywood
version depicting the raid in Zero Dark
Thirty has hit theaters. Kathryn
Bigelow and Mark Boal, the director and writer of The Hurt Locker, take on bin Laden and the mythos encompassing the
CIA, two Presidencies and the military – and may have scored another critical
hit. The big difference between ZDT and its Nat Geo little brother is
that Bigelow focuses all her attention on the decade-plus long investigation
spearheaded at the CIA by Maya, (played by Jessica Chastain who has been
nominated for best actress) a young woman who was recruited right out of
college who’s only task has been to hunt down the world’s most wanted man.
The film is based on obvious true events and producers were
given incredible access to certain information by the Obama administration,
however Bigelow had the daunting task of keeping viewers riveted even though
the outcome and ending was a given. By
presenting the story to the audience through the eyes of Chastain, Bigelow was
able to do what all great filmmakers are able to do—she created a film that
made you emotionally invest in the main character. Early in the film we are shown a scene where
Chastain and the CIA field agent Dan (played by Jason Clarke), are in the
process of interrogating a man with information on a courier that worked for
bin Laden. What ensues is probably the
most controversial part of the film as it portrays “enhanced interrogation”
including waterboarding scenes.
Personally I’ve always been on the fence regarding “enhanced
interrogations” and much of what the post 9-11 world that President Bush both
dealt with and helped to initiate under his watch. While some tactics are a necessary evil in
the end, we do have to remain vigilant in not relishing them (see Abu
Gharib). Regardless your opinion of the
man, it’s hard to say that the tactics that he pushed through including the
“enhanced interrogations” didn’t provide the intel our clandestine services
needed to finally capture bin Laden.
That’s not to say that “enhanced interrogations” alone were the reason
he was finally captured – no endeavor of this magnitude can lend its success to
one practice.
Is it morally
ambiguous not to afford Geneva Convention rights to enemy combatants because
they aren’t fighting for a particular sovereign nation? Perhaps it is. Then again is waterboarding torture? Is playing Gwar at 200 decibels around the
clock? These are part of the
psychological games the CIA used to weaken the resolve of some detainees. Some tactics may have played fast and loose
constitutionally but one could argue if they weren’t done, would bin Laden have
ever been caught? And to Bigelow’s credit, she didn’t try to paint President
Obama as some Christ-like deity as compared to his predecessor’s Satan. The world is a far more complicated place
than that and Bigelow is clearly aware of that throughout the film even if some
of President Obama’s most strident supporters aren’t.
Bigelow takes a very straightforward systematic approach to
the hunt for bin Laden in ZDT. At times it seemed a bit too procedural bordering
on banal but given the length of the actual investigation and the stakes that
were at risk, I’m sure those involved were anything but banal. Unfortunately that’s how it translated on
film. Not to mention that much of Maya’s
yeoman’s work is treated as commonplace as your typical office employee. That in itself lends to the view that much of
the work done to capture bin Laden was tedious and often times unproductive—prompting
her superiors to question her tactics--so Bigelow’s answer to that was to jump
ahead a few years into the investigation.
To offset the rigidity of the pace of the film, Bigelow and
Boal take advantage of the character of Maya to its fullest. Shining a light on her solitude as she’s so
alone-- consumed by the hunt—Chastain owns this role without question. Even as she’s consistently beaten down by
both her superiors lack of faith in her to struggles in the investigation, it’s
her resolve that keeps the audience hooked and if you’ve ever seen the Showtime
series Homeland, which is also led by
a strong female protagonist, you’ll appreciate Chastain’s character even more
as she actually represents someone who does exist—albeit without the neuroses
of the character from Homeland.
The best example of her resolve comes when one of her
colleagues was blown up by a suicide car bomber at the Camp Chapman base in
Afghanistan in 2009, killing 7 CIA agents.
Because Maya was spared, she believes it to be an omen that she’s meant
to finish the job. She tells the Seals
at the camp, wary of her and the CIA’s presence, “I’m gonna smoke everybody
involved in this op,” speaking about the attack. “And then I’m gonna kill bin Laden”, prompting
a few raised eyebrows from the Seal unit, not accustomed to such steeliness
from a CIA field agent.
The supporting cast is stocked. You have the Deputy Director played by Mark
Strong (Green Lantern, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) shouting at
his agents in a conference room, “I want targets! Bring me people to kill! Do your fucking jobs!” James Gandolfini plays Leon Panetta, the CIA
Director (now the outgoing Secretary of Defense) and along with them were Kyle
Chandler as Maya’s cautious station chief, Edgar Ramirez as a CIA operative who
tracks bin Laden’s courier, and Jennifer Ehle as a fellow veteran CIA agent. Each one did an amazing job with what they
were given.
We finally head into the last 45 minutes of the film, introducing
Seal Team 6 and the raid itself. What
was a methodical investigative quickly grabs it’s war footing and takes us into
what it must have been like to finally achieve one of the greatest battlefield
victories in modern history. The raid
itself, while bereft with its own problems (the hard landing of the stealth
Blackhawk which later had to be destroyed) changes the viewers point of view,
taking on the perspective of the Seal team.
I found it interesting that even though I knew the outcome, I was still
riveted and at times unsure of what was to come. It was ironic because it was that feeling of
helplessness that Maya conveyed for the first time in the film, when everything
was out of her control.
Zero Dark Thirty will
certainly cement itself in cinematic history if anything for its subject matter
and what it means to each viewer on a personal level. Is it flawed? Yes. Bigelow actually received little help
logistically if any as she had zero access to weaponry or aircraft. Did Kathryn Bigelow use whatever access she
was given to fall in suit with 90% of Hollywood and use this film as a
political statement, no. This was
neither a film that carried a torch for the President nor one that drove a stake
in the heart of his predecessor. She
created a drama akin to an episode of Law and Order but one that transitioned,
at the pivotal moment, into the most significant on-screen adaptation of the
most important military action of recent time.
In the end, after the Seal team successfully completes the
mission, we see an emotionally spent Maya, unsure of what to feel—completely lost
in the moment. She’s given the task of
confirming the identity of bin Laden’s corpse—confirming that it was him and
confirming for the audience that the long struggle to bring the world’s most
wanted man to justice was accomplished.
And Kathryn Bigelow has accomplished an excellent look into history in
the process.
