猎杀本·拉登 Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

For a decade, an elite team of intelligence and military operatives, working in secret across the globe, devoted themselves to a single goal: to find and eliminate Osama bin Laden. Zero Dark Thirty reunites the Oscar winning team of director-producer Kathryn Bigelow and writer-producer Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker) for the story of history's greatest manhunt for the world's most dangerous man.

Considering the subject matter of Zero Dark Thirty, a film that follows the CIA's decade-long hunt for Osama Bin Laden, it'd be little surprise were Hollywood to knock the edges off a little to make it easier for a broader audience. But director Kathryn Bigelow makes no such concession. Off the back of her Oscar-winning feature The Hurt Locker; her movie is pulls-no-punches, under-your-skin drama. As such, it's not always the easiest film to watch, but it is an utterly compelling one.

At the heart of it is Jessica Chastain, playing CIA officer Maya. She's the anchor of Zero Dark Thirty, and it's her drive and determination that underpins the ongoing search. Bigelow employs a broad ensemble, unsurprising given the length of time the film's story covers, but she too is a standpoint. She's emerged as one of America's most compelling, interesting directors, and Zero Dark Thirty is an exceptional, bold piece of film making.

The disc features some welcome extra material that digs a little deeper, but it's on something of a hiding to nothing, given the strength and ferocity of the main feature itself. A modern classic? Maybe, maybe not. But Zero Dark Thirty is a film, either way, which simply demands to be seen. --Jon Foster

I admit that 911 is not a theme that is easy to take. On the very contrary, it is a theme that is so difficult and so error-prone that a director becomes totally discredited in a very short period of time if any slightest mistake occurs. In last year Daldry made a challenge from a subjective and emotional perspective, but he did not receive any good results. In this year, Bigelow told a story from another direction, a more objective and rational perspective. I think it is at least much better.

As for the movies of B, no matter in Zero Dark Thirty or The Hurt Locker, the director’s attitude to the war and revenge is difficult to be defined out. She is more like trying to describe events with a neutral attitude: support or protest against war, agree or disagree with revenge, it is just personal experience after watching her movies. What the audience has seen via director’s lens is human state: the exhausted CIA analyst in Zero Dark Thirty, or the soldier who is almost morbidly fascinated with bomb disposal in The Hurt Locker.

Overall, I think: 1. this movie is very good, and I don’t feel 3 hours is a long time; 2. it begins with the record on the day of 911 - the blank screen and phone records of victims before being killed, which is very shocking; 2. Various serious cruel tortures in CIA 3. The CIA female staff member acts very well.

我承认，911不是一个容易上手的题材。恰恰相反的，这个题材是如此棘手如此令人投鼠忌器，以至于稍有不慎就会陷入几乎短时间内身败名裂的境地。去年Daldry用比较主观比较感情化的视角挑战了一次，结果没有招来什么好脸色。而今年Bigelow从另外一个方向，从一个比较客观理性的视角来讲了这个故事。我想至少好了很多。。
B的电影，无论是《猎杀本拉登》还是《拆弹部队》，都很难看出导演对战争和复仇的态度，她更像是试图用一种与己毫无关系的镜头描述发生的事件：支持或者抗议战争，认同或者反对复仇，都只是每个人看过电影后的私人体验，而观众通过导演镜头下看得见的，是人的状态：无论是《猎杀本拉登》里心力憔悴的CIA分析员，或者是《拆弹部队》里对拆弹几乎病态迷恋的士兵。
总之这部电影我认为1、非常赞3小时毫无感觉；2、片头是911当天记录，黑屏和遇难者遇难前的电话记录非常震撼；2、CIA各种重口味酷刑；3、CIA女职员演技很赞。