93% Zero Dark Thirty

All Critics (184) | Top Critics (42) | Fresh (171) | Rotten (13)

Chastain makes Maya as vivid as a bloodshot eye. Her porcelain skin, delicate features and feminine attire belie the steel within.

No doubt Zero Dark Thirty serves a function by airing America's dirty laundry about detainee and torture programs, but in its wake, there's a crying need for a compassionate Coming Home to counter its brutal Deer Hunter.

While "Zero Dark Thirty" may offer political and moral arguing points aplenty, as well as vicarious thrills,as a film it's simply too much of a passable thing.

From the very first scenes of Zero Dark Thirty, director Kathryn Bigelow demonstrates why she is such a formidable filmmaker, as adept with human emotion as with visceral, pulse-quickening action.

A timely and important reminder of the agonizing human price of zealotry.

Not only is Zero Dark Thirty one of the year's best movies, it's an inspiring one to share with your daughters. That is, if they're old enough to deal with explicit torture scenes.

I'd call it efficient. I would not call it inspired, groundbreaking, brilliant, innovative -- or even particularly effective as drama.

The fact that commentators, pundits, and politicians on both sides of the political spectrum are condemning Zero Dark Thirty is a sure sign that director Kathryn Bigelow and journalist-turned-screenwriter Mark Boal have done something right.

What makes Zero Dark Thirty such a fascinating film is that it plays both as an engaging procedural thriller and a serious examination of the country's moral compass. It is already doing what great movies do-starting conversation.

It asks its audience: When does the risk of doing something outweigh the risk not doing anything? What are the costs of revenge? Where will the "war on terror" take us next?

Zero Dark Thirty is the perfection The Hurt Locker promised.

Zero Dark Thirty is a model of artistic restraint, a film letting fantastic history trump the need to score partisan points.

An effective and expertly made film, but a more character-driven story would've added some flesh to the bones of a great, true story.

It's particularly comparable to Zodiac, while there are also obvious parallels to Homeland, and a riveting, Call Of Duty-type finale.

This is an instant classic.

Zero Dark Thirty is a gripping, authentic-feeling account of the dark side of the war on terror.

Chastain's Maya is a red-tressed Pre-Raphaelite madonna with the cleft chin and chiseled features of an action hero.

After the lengthy torture scenes, procedural repetition takes over until the murkily-filmed Seal Team 6 raid. But Jessica Chastain is quite convincing as a CIA operative dedicated to her job.

A well-acted, well-intentioned, disjointed mess.

A well-produced and well-acted procedural/thriller film that stays focused on the frustrating nuts and bolts CIA led search for the elusive Al Qaeda leader.

A gripping, almost necessary, piece of filmmaking.

The picture acknowledges the very real presence of torture on the post-9/11 landscape -- had the filmmakers ignored the subject, the movie would be little more than vile, jingoistic nonsense.

(Jessica) Chastain's powerful performance, for which she deserves a best actress Academy Award, drives the film. She has no private life, no friends. Her obsession drives her.

"We always get our man, eventually."

Bigelow has hamstrung herself by not committing to a viewpoint. This is a by the numbers, cold, emotionally inert, just the "facts" procedural drama that is just barely a step above an episode of Law & Order.

Bigelow has crafted a film which will keep audiences enrapt for ages to come.

Source: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/zero_dark_thirty/

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