Zero Dark Thirty

It's no Navy SEALs. Although Arnie and Sly are trying to bring back that right wing flag-waving slant of the 80s, there's no escaping the fact that thrillers and action movies have been smarter than your average bear, post 9/11. Like Rendition and Green Zone before it, Oscar-nominated Zero Dark Thirty pockets the full-on patriotism for a more complex take.

A steely Jessica Chastain is a CIA analyst chasing down the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden since 2003. Working from the untrustworthy information given up by tortured prisoners, Chastain works her way up the chain of al-Qaeda operatives and believes that everyone is wrong; he’s not hiding in a cave. However, with each terrorist attack - the 2005 London bombing, the Marriot hotel bombing of 2008 - the powers that be get itchy for results.

There has been a media furore over the torture scenes and more to the point the justification of the torture - the victims give up information that eventually lead to the 'possible' location of bin Laden. What's significant is Chastain's disgust with it - she can’t look when Clarke waterboards a prisoner - and Clarke's inability to deal with the job, asking to be re-assigned home. The tortured Ammar (a wonderful Reda Kateb) is not your average American hater either - he's a human that’s become dehumanised by the lengthy interrogation. The ends justify the means but at what price, the film asks.

The plot gets flabby in the middle and attention can wander. Mark Boal's (The Hurt Locker) script deliberately ignores any fleshing out of Chastain - she is her job; when an impressed James Gandolfini asks her what else she has been doing for the CIA, she says that this is all she does - the implication being her work and personal life. It's the reason why things slow down but it does have its eventual pay off as Bigelow’s last shot says more about her than any romance/family back home might have.

Bigelow cranks it back up for the final half hour with the assault on bin Laden's compound. Action fans, probably already disappointed with the talk-heavy two hours, aren’t treated to a gung-ho pay-off as Bigelow opts for tension and atmosphere over bullets and bodies. Playing out in what feels like real time, Bigelow's Call Of Duty-esque POV puts us right in the house with the marines and it’s exhilarating stuff.

Playing out like an in-depth police procedural thriller, Zero Dark Thirty is worthy of your time