Thursday, December 20, 2012

The Hurt Locker 2: Abbottabad Drift

Zero Dark Thirty is Kathryn Bigelow's follow-up to her award-sucking war film The Hurt Locker.  This film has been getting just as favorable reviews from seemingly all the critics in town, citing this as a masterpiece and claiming how brilliant Jessica Chastain is in this telling of the hunt for Osama bin Laden taken from supposed "first hand accounts."

I did really like the action in this film - Bigelow is great at putting you right in the middle of this world, and the eventual seizure of bin Laden's compound is handled magnificently.  Even though everyone knows the ending (hint: we killed bin Laden), I still felt my buttcheeks squeezing in tension during those scenes.  The controversial 'torture' scenes, which have been upsetting certain politicians, are indeed quite disturbing but feel truthful.  And Jessica Chastain, who has been on a roll recently with roles in The Help and Take Shelter, finally is given material where her fierce inner-woman can come alive.  She's the one member of the CIA who organized the whole plan to take down bin Laden, which is clearly what happened in real life.

My complaints are similar to those I had of Lincoln (and Argo for that matter).  Even though I enjoyed the action bits, and there's some great acting on display (including Jason Clarke, playing a guy who doesn't fuck around during interrogations), about two-thirds of the film is endless political jargon.  The characters get into the nitty-gritty of their jobs, and I found it impossible to pay attention at certain parts.  Maybe I'm just not nuanced enough, maybe it's from all my years of playing Call of Duty and losing my sensitization, but I just found it tough to sit through.  It's really "well done," and feels like an honest portrayal of this mission (despite the obvious changes for the theme of the movie) - if anything the assault of the compound is worth seeing it for - but this is most definitely another overrated film from critics.

Rating: C+

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