That was an excellent one.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

This film is about Maya (Jessica Chastain) a potty mouthed CIA operative and her one woman crusade to get Bin Laden. It starts off with 9-11. Maya is a composite character. The CIA is not as dumb as this film portrays. She visits CIA black sites around the world through their revolving door. It appears as if she got all the intelligence on her own. We know this was not the case.In comparison, I must say "Seal Team Six" was a far better film as far as plot. What this film offers is an obsessed Jessica Chastain who borders on insanity. Her character seemed unrealistic at times, but compelling at other times.Much has been made about the politics of this film which I found they took great lengths to be non-controversial. Sometimes facts have a bias to them. There is excessive torture at the beginning of the film. Information is gathered from people that have been tortured, but not necessarily because of it, as there is a disconnect between the two events. The audience is allowed to decide on its effectiveness. Seal Team Six appears late in the film, almost as an afterthought. The other film was superior in presenting the Navy Seals.Obama and Bush aren't mentioned per se. Obama appears speaking in the background on TV. There is a new policy concerning torture that is alluded to, but the details are not given. One remark was, "You don't want to be the one caught holding the dog collar."There is a reluctance on the part of some to invade the Bin Laden compound due to the WMD/Iraq disaster although no blame is specifically placed.Chastain does an excellent job and is the best aspect of this feature. In an idea world she would have played Maya in "Seal Team Six." I found the political criticisms unwarranted as was the praise given to this film when "Seal Team Six" was clearly the superior production in presenting the tale. If you haven't caught "Seal Team Six" check it out.Recap: Chastain great. Rest of movie so-so. "Seal Team Six" superior over-all.Parental guidance: F-bombs, no sex, some male prisoner rear nudity.

I'm surprised by how many people rated this so badly. It's a great movie if you ACTUALLY pay attention to the storyline. You have to understand everything that's going on, because if you don't, then you just don't get it. For those of us who watched and did not get distracted it was fantastic. Jessica Chastain is perfect for this role. She never disappoints, NEVER! I highly recommend this movie to everyone who is actually smart and understands what CIA when through for our country to catch UBL. If you don't understand it then you really shouldn't be leaving any reviews!

Zero Dark ThirtyBetween all the factual accuracy and controversies and unfortunate events the film fails to bind all of these into one entertaining drama resulting into an exhausting experience of 156 minutes of just plain old news. Zero Dark Thirty is of course written explicitly and executed with conviction but there is not a single lose thread for the audience to hang on to it until the curtain drops. Jessica Chastain holds on to her part of the role tightly till the end and is convincing throughout being aware of the pressure she has on this project since she is the only glue that binds it all and if they'd have given that character more gravitas and depth along with some high pitched dramatic sequences, it would have just worked. Zero Dark Thirty is the slow pill that takes its time offering weird sensations and some pain along the long road and then results into being the same old pain killer.

I've lived in the Muslim world for years and in Pakistan for a few months. Now some friends came to stay and the one place they decided they HAD to see was the empty plot of land where once stood Osama Bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad. Three hours to go, three hours back, some pictures and a story to tell (the movie says the city is 45 minutes drive from Islamabad, but that was back in 2010 - not now!).Once we came back we were so involved with the story of the raid that we had to see Zero Dark Thirty (for the 2nd time for me, 1st for them). The killing of UBL is meticulously reconstructed, but only covers the last 30 minutes of the movie. Most of the story involves a CIA semi-fictional agent who by sheer determination and luck convinces the Agency that Bin Laden can be reached, and that they have a good idea of what men is the key to his whereabouts: Ibrahim Sayed, AKA Abu Ahmed Al-Kuwaiti. Information from detainees suggests Sayed is UBL's courier. Our hero figures that, wherever in Central Asia UBL is, the one thing he is sure to have is a courier. Track him, you get the big Kahuna.The Agency is initially unlucky to believe erroneous intelligence saying Sayed is dead. And then they are lucky to find out he is not dead. With a lot of push from our hero, they allot the resources to find him. It is no easy task. That's my favorite part of the movie. Surveillance technology can find out from where he is calling his family (busy districts in the Punjab), but it is a lot more tricky to follow him in the middle of the crowd to the place where he lives.After tracking Sayed to a VERY suspicious compound in a city the CIA never expected Bin Laden to be, it is time to decide if this is really UBL's residence. But the mysterious inhabitant never shows his face. I don't think he was hiding from CIA cameras, he just knows he is so recognizable. So the decision is left to the higher-ups, to bomb the place, raid it, or just keep waiting for more definitive intel. And that is the part where the Director has to make a dramatic decision. Does she show the President and his top aides deliberating? I think putting Obama, Clinton and Biden in the movie would suck all the air out of the room to the detriment of the focus on the field agents. Leon Panneta shows up, but he is not even named. The final act wrote itself, because it is a documentary-like recreation of the raid.Some reviewers pointed glaring mistakes: the Pakistanis seem to be speaking Arabic instead of Urdu. One part I had to laugh was when a mob stood outside the American Embassy in Islamabad. If you have been there, or anywhere in the diplomatic compound, you know it would never happen.It is hard to make suspenseful a story that unfolds throughout 10 years and involves meticulous collection of intelligence and a lot of false starts. So the movie may feel like a "boring procedural" for people who are expecting normal Hollywood fare. In order to add a personal touch to the main character, she has a fried killed in a highly implausible scene. Otherwise, Maya just remains a stock character you have to fill in the gaps: lonely woman married to her job, always having to prove herself, obsessed with a task her superiors don't want to give priority.Some people pointed out to a big lie of the movie: that torture gave crucial information. I'd point out that it is just a half-lie. Yes, nobody gave useful intel for the killing of UBL under torture. However, keeping terror suspects for years under dubious legal status (say with me - Guantanamo!) paid dividends.