Political agenda privileged in Zero Dark Thirty

It’s not hard to miss the controversy at the core of Zero Dark Thirty, director Kathryn Bigelow’s (The Hurt Locker) drama about the pursuit of  Osama Bin Laden. The movie opens with a scene in which CIA agent Dan (Jason Clarke) tortures a suspected terrorist he thinks might have ties to Bin Laden. Dan completely humiliates the guy and wears him down, eventually tricking him into revealing key piece of info about Bin Laden’s courier in the process.

The controversy isn’t whether or not the waterboarding and torture really happened — we know it did. Rather, the controversy surrounds the suggestion that the torture helped lead the CIA to Bin Laden, something the U.S. government has denied vehemently.  The reaction to this opening scene is suggestive. That the film would come off as a piece of propaganda that takes a pro-torture stance — something we imagine Bigelow might not have actually intended — shows just how mixed up its message really is. It’s clearly pro-Obama (he’s not in the film, but he gives the executive order to take him out) but it comes off as pro-American and pro-military. Unlike Argo, which has a true story about a CIA endeavor at its core, Zero Dark Thirty simply doesn’t provide a balanced point of view.

The story centers on the Maya (Jessica Chastain), whose drive and determination to capture Bin Laden outweighs that of even her CIA superiors. One of the CIA’s top investigators, she believes that if she can find the courier she’ll find Bin Laden. She makes it her sole personal mission to track  Bin Laden’s trusted messenger.  Although often visibly uncomfortable, Maya plows forward with a single focus. And, because Chastain internalizes many of Maya’s emotions, it’s difficult for the viewer to ascertain just what this woman thought about the torturing of prisoners.

While the events and investigations that led up to the identification of Bin Laden’s bunker are rather tedious, the film’s final scene in which a group of Navy Seals descend on the compound based on Maya’s belief that Bin Laden is holed up there has real drama to it. The real-life frustrating years it took to get to that point, however, still don’t justify this movie’s 157-minute running time.