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When it comes to true stories, they don't come much bigger than the hunt for Osama Bin Laden after the September 11 attacks. Zero Dark Thirty doesn't attempt to tell the whole story of that manhunt, but focuses instead on just one person: the CIA agent, played by Jessica Chastain, who tracked him down to his hideout.
It's not a straight retelling of the real-life story, but one of the best Netflix movies is very close to it: the writer Mark Boal is a reporter who spent months interviewing many of the people involved in the mission.
Zero Dark Thirty has been compared favorably to lots of acclaimed movies, from All The President's Men to Zero director Kathryn Bigelow's own The Hurt Locker. It's an incredibly tense thriller that's sometimes hard to watch, a movie that builds to an explosive climax that grips even though you know how it's going to end.
A "masterclass in action film-making"
With 91% from the critics on Rotten Tomatoes, it's clear that Zero Dark Thirty isn't your average action move. Empire Magazine gave it the full five stars: "It’s measured, seething with suppressed emotion, unafraid of slow stretches and false trails, snapping shut like a mantrap when blood is shed."
In lesser hands this could have been a rah-rah, 'USA! USA! USA!' kind of action film, but Bigelow is careful not to fall into that trap. While some critics would have preferred something considerably less nuanced, that isn't the story Bigelow wants to tell here. It's a character piece, not propaganda, and it doesn't shy away from some of the less heroic things that happened during the hunt for the terrorist leader.
According to the Evening Standard, it's "a masterclass in action film-making, using subjective viewpoints, low light and a naturalistic soundtrack to embed you right there in the confusion of what’s happening, the suspense almost completely undiminished by knowing the outcome in advance."
This is "a mesmerizing chronicle of the hunt for Osama bin Laden," The New Yorker wrote. "Jessica Chastain, with her sudden smile and distraught look, plays Maya with warmth, and with murder in her heart – the performance is startling at times in its ferocity." And the climactic raid, seen through night vision goggles, is "a methodical, room-by-room exercise of deadly force without parallel in recent movies."
