A Must-See Controversial Movie About Killing bin Laden

If you didn't know anything about award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow's background, you would have thought that perhaps she's born of a military family. Both of her two most recent works, including the Oscar-award-winning The Hurt Locker and her current Zero Dark Thirty were named after specific military terms which are jargons to lay movie-goers like me. But the 61-year-old woman director was the only girl born to a librarian and a paint factory manager. So with her education in fine arts institutions first as a painter, and then a graduate from the film program at Columbia University, one wonders why she has a track record of picking the most masculine subjects - cops and gansters, bikers, FBI agents, nuclear-powered submarine, the Iraq war and now, more recently, the CIA and the U.S. Navy Seals' capturing and killing of Osama bin Laden.

I have to admit that I wan't a fan of The Hurt Locker even though Jeremy Renner is one of my most favourite actors. But the movie won Bigelow numerous awards including being the first woman to receive an Academy Award for Best Director. Now history might repeat itself again in next month's Academy Awards event except that Bigelow is not among the Best Director nominees for Zero Dark Thirty even though the film is up for five Awards - Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress, Best Film Editing and Best Sound Editing. The movie is controversial because of the waterboarding torturing of 'detainees' used. We all read about the Acting CIA Director protesting to the film studio and via a media statement that even though CIA operatives have met with the film's production team prior to shooting the movie, the torturing techniques used in the flick were inaccurate. There were speculations that this is the reason why Bigelow didn't get her Best Director nomination this time round.

Whatever people say about the accuracy of the plot details, Zero Dark Thirty (a military term referring to 30 minutes after midnight and is prevailingly pronounced as Oh instead of zero) is a fabulous film! What strikes you is the outstanding screenplay written by Mark Boal who is also one of the producers. He also wrote The Hurt Locker and In The Valley of Elah, another terrific film. While the thrilling plot and war scenes keep you on the edge of the seat, it's the screenplay and the dialogue that's captivating.

The entire cast is very strong, but Jessica Chastain is exceptional as always as CIA agent Maya. Chastain has expressed in various interviews that playing the role of real-life woman CIA operative who was the real heroine behind the capturing and killing of bin Laden was, in a way, Chastain's method of celebrating this woman's accomplishments. I also thought that Australian actor Jason Clarke, who plays another CIA agent Dan, should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Unfortunately, I think because he's the main U.S. agent executing the torture in the film, that's why he might have been snubbed by the Academy.

The movie is so intense that you wouldn't feel that it's 157 minutes long. For most of us movie-goers who already know the story's ending, to keep us biting our fingers throughout the film was a huge feat. When bin Laden was finally killed in the movie, I couldn't help but recall the TV newscasts of President Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and the entire senior U.S. Administration staff watching the whole thing unfolding in the Oval Office's Situation Room.

Even though you may not have a stomach for violence and torture, this is a must-see movie because it's history!