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Zero Dark Thirty (2012)'s comments - page 3
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Comments 31 - 45 of 45
juanittomx
Superbe!!... At one point the suspense was incredible, great acting and directing everything was take care with perfection.King Daijs
Wauw, Jessica Chastain is so incredible in this movie! Utterly brilliant.Public Enemy
kvper, sounds like you should read up on how it all really happened.Musanna
Totally agree with McNinja.So boring until the raid which was absolutely spectacular.
Dr Pandhattan
Go to the theater prepared, this one is incredible. My review of "Zero Dark Thirty:" http://www.kameronmcbride.com/2013/01/zero-dark-thirty-2012-review.htmlLuiz Cruz
If you happend to know Sade, maybe you will realise that there is a kind os sodomic pleasure in the act of torture. My country lived a dictatorship in 60's, Americans are doing the same barbaric stuff 50 years later. Where are you from anyway? Some cold, pacific, rich and afraid northern country I supose...indiastokers
Astounded as to why this isn't featured in the 2010's list. It is definitely in the top three best films of 2012, and it also definitely makes the list of my favourite films of all time.http://letterboxd.com/kristenwiigs/film/zero-dark-thirty/
devilsadvocado
If you had given the task of making this film to 100 of Bigelow's contemporaries (with their own script), I'm not sure Zero Dark Thirty would have even cracked the top 10. That's not to say it wasn't a fair effort; I found myself well stimulated for at least 130 of the 157 minutes of run time.In my opinion, it would have been more entertaining, from a general audiences point of view, if they had given equal screen time to the team of Navy Seals. We could have watched them doing practice rounds of the raid on a model of the compound that was actually built somewhere in North Carolina. We could have been given glimpses of their home lives, their personalities, etc. I realize the story in a sense belonged to Maya, but it was the Navy Seals who held most of my intrigue. Not sure if others feel the same.
My biggest complaint about the movie is Jessica Chastain. Not to say she is a bad actress; quite the contrary. We already know how brilliant she is as the dainty bitch, the tender mother, the loving wife, and the romantic interest, but she has to be one of the least convincing badass female types I've ever seen on screen. Watching her in the interrogation scenes or trying to stand up to her male colleagues was painful. The woman doesn't have an ounce of badass in her, even when completely delved into her role as I believe she was here. That was grave miscasting on Bigelow's part, trying to cash in on the appeal of a hot up-and-comer instead of choosing someone who may have been better for the part.
dombrewer
Cletis absolutely nailed this one for me - that's a great review below.I didn't care for The Hurt Locker at all, and was mystified when it won the Best Picture Oscar, but had high hopes for Zero Dark Thirty - Bigelow could fine tune some of her bombastic style at the expense of realistic psychology having now conquered Hollywood, it's based on specific thrilling modern events, it stars Jessica Chastain... I was expecting a great deal more. Bigelow is a gutsy and visually compelling director, but I'm less and less convinced she's a particularly smart one.
This is a story that takes a very, very long time to get anywhere. Certainly the efforts of the CIA investigation into finding Bin Laden were torturous (pun fully intended) and probably grindingly dull, but that's not an excuse to make the whole middle hour of the film feel like ten years too.
Concerning those scenes of torture that sparked the most debate - did it result in information that led to finding Bin Laden? In this version of events, yes, it looks like it. Does it glorify or justify the use of torture? Absolutely not, and I don't believe the film tries to. The opening scenes are harsh, unpleasant and interestingly provocative about the Bush administration and the lies they told to secure a viable and desperately needed target.
Bigelow fumbles this strong beginning in a truly bizarre way, seemingly not trusting in the intelligence of her audience. We're into the slow grind but each time something dramatic is about to "unexpectedly" happen the camerawork suddenly gets all edgy and portentous. This is not tension, this is spoon feeding.
I rate Jessica Chastain a great deal and have watched her rapid ascent to the top with wonder and admiration. Why, now she's been nominated for every major award for her performance as Maya, was I unimpressed? She's as committed and just as watchable as ever, but there's something missing which I can only assume is the thinness of material she's dealing with - I never thought for a moment I was watching an exceptional piece of acting, it honestly could have been anyone - there's some shouting, there are some tears, there's a lot of pensive looking. I don't get the praise this time. The acting honours, without question, go to Jason Clarke as Dan the torture man - a grounded, detailed performance that grows and turns in fascinating ways as we learn more about his character. Elsewhere the cast are patchy indeed, ranging from fine to terrible with a big chunk of "whatever" in the middle.
The final half an hour comprising the attack on the Abbottabad compound is well done, excitingly shot in real time and a little disturbing (why was there never a plan in place to attempt to capture Bin Laden, put him on trial and quash all inevitable conspiracy doubts about his death?), and although we know nothing about the men sent in to do the job, watching their work realistically enacted almost entirely in spooky night vision is fascinating and gruesome. Much of the praise lavished on the film seems to hinge on people's excitement at this part, which makes me wonder what kind of terrible film it would have been if the screenplay had gone into production before it had to be altered to include the events recreated in this conclusion. Even here there are bizarre moments where the logic stutters. One of the two stealth choppers we follow on the mission crashes but somehow the entire strike team all manage to get back to base on the sole remaining chopper, with a dead body and a dozen bin bags of files and hard drives. Obviously there were other helicopters, but where were they? At a vital moment like this I was left scratching my head in the dark (thirty). There are elements of the received version of events that are simply not touched on in this film, where mentioning them would clear up the inevitable confusion that leaving them out produces.
This is an ambiguity that runs through the film, often not in a good way, especially when the content is absolutely screaming out for an editorial voice. I'd argue not having one is more a case of lazing screenwriting than challenging cinema. When Maya finally sees the body and positively identifies him it's extremely ambiguous. Why? The US government went to great pains to prove it, naturally - but in the film we can only ask ourselves is it really him? Is she actually lying? When she leaves the Afghan base at the end of the film, alone on a huge aircraft she leans back and quietly cries - why? Is she relieved her mission is finally over? Lost now her life's work is complete? Dealing with the pointlessness of spending ten years, condoning torture and the loss of life just hunting one old man? Or dealing with the knowledge that her predictions were ultimately wrong? Who knows. But I have a suspicion that Boal and Bigelow didn't really know either.
It ends up being a frustratingly inconsistent film, one that may well end up being better remembered as the film that stirred up widespread discontent about the American government's stance on torture and military strike forces than being an often exciting, often leaden dip into recent political history.
aniforprez
@Nine99 if that's what you're watching movies for i feel sorry for youNine99
Can't wait to give this ridiculous pro-torture propaganda fantasy a bad rating.Luiz Cruz
Ufanist american trash. American torturing for pleasure. Sick stuff!TheNorthernNerd
Check out my review over on http://thenorthernnerd.wordpress.com/2013/02/09/review-zero-dark-thirty/!Cletis Vandamme
http://deathhascome.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/zero-dark-thirty-2012/#more-309INTERROGATOR: When was the last time you saw an overrated Kathryn Bigelow movie!?
SUBJECT: Never, she’s great.
INTERROGATOR: When you lie to me, I hurt you.
SUBJECT: Ok, I’ll tell! It was The Hurt Locker! That movie was meh.
INTERROGATOR: What about the new one? Tell me about Zero Dark Thirty! Now, or I’ll waterboard you, bro!
SUBJECT: Please don’t! I’ll tell you, I’ll tell! I’d give it a “meh+”.
This year’s Oscar nominations are out, and Zero Dark Thirty is up for five awards. How many of those are deserved? In my opinion, two, both of them for editing. This ridiculously over-praised war thriller begins and ends on a high note, but the stuff in the middle? I almost fell asleep. I never do that.
The film comes right out of the gate with sound clips from 9/11. We’ve all heard this stuff before, but it serves to get the audience into the right mindset. To remind us about the stakes, and the importance of the events we’re about to see documented. The first third or so of the film revolves around Jessica Chastain’s character observing the torture sessions of suspected terrorists. The movie has received a fair amount of backlash for supposedly being pro-torture, but I find this first section to be the most enthralling. It’s never glorified, and although it gets results in the form of useful intel, we see the toll it takes on the ones inflicting the torture. I feel like the movie is successful in staying neutral in regards to having an agenda, and just attempting to tell it like it happened.
And of course, the movie ends with the raid on Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad. The entire sequence is riveting and directed with remarkable finesse and efficiency. The film ends on a note of ambiguity, which is perfect for the subject matter. So essentially, I was completely captivated by about 100 minutes of the film’s 160-minute running time. But what about the rest? One critic described the middle section of Zero Dark Thirty as an elongated episode of Law & Order. And I’m inclined to agree. Maya chases down leads, they don’t turn out, she narrowly escapes death, rinse and repeat for an hour. The dialogue is weighed down by confusing intel and military jargon, and it just didn’t do it for me. The movie really lost me for that middle portion.
Jessica Chastain is God’s gift to my boner. When I heard Bigelow was doing another movie set in the Middle East, I was immediately wary. But once I found out Jessica was starring in it, my anticipation skyrocketed. When it was announced that she was up for Best Actress at the Oscars, I couldn’t wait to see her do her thing. To my dismay, I was not impressed. She’s perfectly serviceable as the determined Maya, but at no point in the movie did I find myself saying, “Wow, that’s some impressive acting.” Honestly, I think Jason Clarke gives the best performance in the film. He’s the most developed character, and the moral dilemma he faces in torturing captives is, for me, the heart of the movie. The film takes a very narrow and focused direction, and I think character development suffers because of that. There’s an obvious emotional disconnect between the audience and the characters for most of the movie, and I’m sure that’s intentional. But when you introduce new characters in the last section of the movie and then expect me to care when their lives are in jeopardy, it just doesn’t work.
Having said all of this, let me end this review by being blunt. This is a good movie. However, based on all of the praise and accolades, I expected an excellent movie. Bigelow’s direction is taut and there’s an obvious display of impeccable craft. But a movie needs more than that. The screenplay is too clinical, and the score is fairly generic. I enjoyed it, but Zero Dark Thirty will be going in the record books as one of my biggest disappointment of 2012.
3.5/5
http://deathhascome.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/zero-dark-thirty-2012/#more-309
kvper
is disgustingly feminist, all women are super smarts and solve all the problems, but all men are stupid and only serve to fire weapons.Showing items 31 – 45 of 45