"Zero Dark Thirty" never so much as brushes up against these questions. Others argue that jihad is inextricable from Islam, and that one necessary step is for the West to recognize and cherish its own unique virtues – to cherish that for which its spies, soldiers, and citizens fight, sacrifice, kill and die. The solution to these thinkers is for the Western world to be nicer to non-Western nations, to practice multiculturalism and to share the wealth. Some argue terrorism, including the 9-11 attack, is caused by Western imperialism. America's founding fathers had to deal with jihad see Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates. The significance of the date of September 11 goes back over four centuries. After that defeat, Islam stopped its spread. Islam increased its territory through jihad from its invention in the seventh century until September 11, 1683, at the Battle of Vienna. The film opens with audio from the Septemterror attacks, suggesting that the war between Islam and the non-Muslim world dates from that attack. Why? The film doesn't even acknowledge that there are people out there asking the question, never mind attempting to suggest an answer. Men, women and children throughout the Muslim world, and, as the film makes clear, in America's and Europe's cities, are eager to blow themselves up, as long as they can take some infidels with them. Dan risks his humanity by making his living beating and humiliating other men. Maya sacrificed years of her life to the hunt for Osama bin Laden. "Zero Dark Thirty" sidesteps key questions. I think the same material could have been better treated in a documentary with selective re-enactments. I wasn't entertained, and my understanding and worldview were not expanded. I want to be made to identify with a character and I want, through that identification, to learn more about life, or I want to be entertained. I want them to do to me what drama can do. I wish I had gone to see a film built around his character and his performance. His depiction of his work as just another job – he could be playing a bus driver with the same amount and degree of expressiveness – is provocative. Dan humiliates, beats, and water boards suspects, and then feeds them delicious meals of hummus and olives when they deliver. Jason Clarke is very strong and charismatic as Dan, a CIA interrogator. All I kept thinking was, "Jessica Chastain is being praised for *this* performance? Why?" The dullness of her performance, and the underwritten character, made it almost impossible for me to lose myself in the story, such as it was. I didn't care about this character at all. We know nothing about her, except that she was recruited to the CIA while in high school – we are never told what would draw the CIA to a high school student. CIA agent Maya, played by Jessica Chastain, is the closest the film has to a main character. Characters are given no backstory and no character arch. "Zero" makes no attempt to draw the viewer in with any human sentiment. There are also scenes in offices where characters stare intently at computer screens or interrogation videos, and characters yell at each other and use obscenities, as their frustrating hunt for Osama bin Laden wears them down. Scenes consist of depictions of beating and water boarding of detainees in order to gather information, agents stalking a suspect in Pakistan's crowded, chaotic bazaars, terrorist bombings, assassinations and assassination attempts. Episodic scenes occur in a choppy manner, one after the other. That sequence is so professionally shot it could be actual documentary footage. Its strongest feature is its dramatization of the Navy Seal Team 6 operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that killed bin Laden. "Zero Dark Thirty" is a grim, clinical depiction of the CIA search for Osama bin Laden.
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