December 15, 2012 | 5:33 pm

Review: ‘Zero Dark Thirty

Posted by Joan Alperin-Schwartz

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'Zero Dark Thirty' directed by the brilliant Kathryn Bigelow and written by her partner, Mark Boals ('The Hurt Locker') opens with the horrific voices of people trapped in the towers and those on the ground on 9/11

 
We then cut to an U.S. facility in Pakistan. The year is 2003. We meet Maya (Jessica Chastain) a recently hired CIA operative. She is being given a lesson on the necessity of water boarding by her mentor, Dan (the excellent,Jason Clark)

When the torture victim begs May for help, she replies...'You can help yourself by being truthful'.

From here on, Maya and her small group of CIA operatives go on a ten year pursuit of Osama bin Laden. The film gives us an in-depth study on all the major events that led up to his capture...Including...

The London bombings, Obama's campaign, the various extremely dangerous Navy Seals missions in tracking and capturing one terrorist after another.

Many of the images are disturbing...There are a lot of torture scenes...Of course there is a great deal of violence, but believe me, you will never turn away from the screen.

Personally, I forgot I was watching a film. I was so caught up in the painstakingly detail with which Maya pursued Bin Laden. It's really interesting that even to this day, she's never got public credit for capturing the number 1 terrorist in the world. Says a lot for the CIA'S good old boy network.

Kathryn Bigelow has assembled an excellent supporting cast, including James Gandolfini as the head of the CIA, Joel Edgerton, Jennifer Ehle, Mark Strong and Kyle Chandler.

Everything about this film screams Oscar. It has already won many awards and I can see why.

I gave 'Zero Dark Thirty' which opens in theatres Wednesday, December 19th, 41/2 bagels out of 5.

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Thanks everyone and do not miss this film.