Zero Dark Thirty centres on the woman behind the manhunt: a young CIA officer named Maya (Chastain), who has dedicated her entire life to hunting Osama. The film opens with Maya accompanying fellow officer Dan (Clarke) to a CIA black site where a detainee is being held. Maya bears witness to the torture and humiliation Dan carries out. It doesn`t get any easier from there as Maya spends the next eight years buried in her quest to track down Osama as she survives brutal attacks and chases down leads, eventually leading to the raid on the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan by SEAL Team 6.
Considering the subject matter at hand, it was inevitable that Zero Dark Thirty would attract its fair share of controversy even before the cameras started rolling. Everything from classified information allegedly being made available to the filmmakers to the movie`s stance on torture was called into question. While this reviewer can`t vouch for how closely the film hews to actual events nor can many others, really he can say that the film seems to be an honest and earnest portrayal. It`s noticeably devoid of Michael Bay-esque rah-rah, flag-waving, chest-thumping patriotism, and is a thoughtful portrait of men and women simply doing their jobs.
Chastain is convincing in her subdued turn as a career woman whose job is more dangerous and has more at stake than most. Maya is a woman who, in Chastain`s own words, is “trained to be unemotional and analytically precise and yet, we don`t get a flat, uninteresting robot. Bigelow is subtle enough not to thrust a “girl power agenda in our faces as the first woman to take home a Best Director Oscar, she well could have. There are the expected moments where it`s made clear that Maya is “a woman in a man`s world, but these don`t stray into clichÃ