Top 5 Reasons Zero Dark Thirty Sucks… Kind Of

It’s not often that we dedicate a whole top 5 to one film, but I feel like Zero Dark Thirty needs a top 5 all to itself. Zero Dark Thirty releases nationwide this weekend after being limited for several weeks. This film has a ton of critical hype and just garnered quite a few Oscar nominations, including best picture. With that being said, I’m not sure what all the hype is about. I’m not trying to say that it was a total crap film, because it wasn’t. There are some redeeming qualities: the script is good, the film has a strong point of view, the cast gives good performances, and the subject matter is interesting enough to carry the film. That’s about where my positivity ends, so let’s jump right into this the top 5 reasons that Zero Dark Thirty sucks… kind of.

5. Jessica Chastain is overrated

I’m fully admitting that this might be personal bias; I’m not a fan of Chastain. But I have been won over by actors I hate when they give good performances (Christian Bale –who I can’t stand – in American Psycho is amazing). Chastain is being heralded as one of the best performances of the year, and is almost a shoe in for the best actress Oscar, but why? Yes her character is driven, but that’s in the script. Yes her character solves a big mystery, but that’s in the script and yes she gives up along the way and descends into… darkness? But that’s in the script! Maybe we are just awarding an actress for playing a well written part. Now, it is a skill to not completely mess up a part, especially a layered one like this one. But I am not willing to award as the best for simply doing the bare minimum of what an actor should do, which is not mess up the part. It just felt like the red headed bimbo from The Help went to college and was hired by the CIA. In a part that is given such high praise I accept much more from an actor, I want to look at the screen and see the character, not the actor.

4. Spoiler Alert: The USA Catches and Kills Bin Laden

Part of the issue with Zero Dark Thirty is it plays like a mystery, and not a very well told mystery at that. We all know the end of this story, it happened just over two year ago. SEAL team 6 goes into a small Pakistani town, captures and kills Osama bin Laden. This is not news, so why is played as if we don’t know? The main premise of the film is will-she-or-won’t-she catch him. A question that we all know the answer to, so two hours into the film I found myself screaming “just catch him already!” I know that it took ten years to find and catch him, and the story itself is interesting, but the way this film drudges along it felt like we watched every moment of search. Aside from the fact that we know how it ends, there are two other problems with the way the story is told. First, there is not a single surprise in this film. Whether it’s predicable filming, an overbearing score, or just taking too long to get to the point, every single moment of Zero Dark feels highly predicable. The final issue with the story is about halfway through the director of the CIA (our main character’s boss) admits that there is no point in chasing Bin Laden anymore… SO WHY ARE YOU STILL SHOWING IT TO US!!!

A quick side note on the actual capture of Bin Laden scene: what should be the climactic moment of the film, and what we as an American audience should feel as a great scene of celebration, ends up looking like a cut scene from a Call of Duty game. Sadly disappointing.

3. Kathryn Bigelow Was NOT Snubbed From the Oscar Race

If you’ve read this far you’ve picked out some of my issues with the way the film was directed. But overall there are several issues with the way that Bigelow presented the material. The film was poorly paced, nothing new given on the subject matter. Bigelow made a very similar film once before (The Hurt Locker, for which she won an Oscar for and deserved it) and if the message of film is what she really meant to portray then, this may be the last film of hers I see (see point #1). This is the second film Bigelow has made about contemporary wars and it’s not a surprise to American audiences that new wars are fought politically and slowly over years and years rather than the old school style of direct combat. But we’ve seen this, we know this, give us a new take on what we are seeing! There is something to be said about doing something similar to what we have seen before and doing very very well, but sadly this is not the case here.

2.  We don’t have to love this film…

…because it’s about the heroes who captured Bin Laden. Yes, the people who went in and put their lives on the line to capture Bin Laden are HEROES, and anyone who helped them get the information needed are also heroes. But that doesn’t mean that we have to love a film about them. Yes, this subject is something that we WANT to love, but this film is simply not great. The story is great, let’s all just calm down a little and look at this for what it is. A movie, entertainment, and a piece of historical fiction based on facts. 

To go along with this point, I just don’t feel like we needed Zero Dark right now. There is not enough time between us and this major event. We all can still remember what it was like, we don’t need or want to revisit it. If we put some more time between ourselves and the film we may actually be able to see it as a film and not as a painful reminder of what we’ve all just lived through and then celebrated the death of a tyrant. Don’t love or hate Zero Dark Thirty because of the subject matter and how personally we are still attached to it, but love it or hate it because of the film that it is.

1. Zero Dark Thirty Tells Us That Torture is Okay

This may not be the message you wanted to send Kathryn Bigelow, but it is the message that you put into your film. It’s not a surprise that the USA had to use tactics that are less than legal to get the information needed to capture and kill Bin Laden, but I don’t need to see anyone get water-boarded, strapped to a dog collar, or put into a box (don’t worry kids that all happens in the first scene of the film). We are torturing people for information. Again I’m not naive enough to believe that we don’t, but it is ILLEGAL. Most of the film takes place in the Bush administration, and in Zero Dark we are lead to believe that the administration is fully endorsing torture (no wonder republican leaders are trying as hard as they can to discredit the film). My problem comes in when we move into the Obama administration and Obama is made out to be a bad guy for stopping the torture techniques that we were using. Really… REALLY??? So sad that you can’t illegally torture people anymore. This is my real issue with the film, this is the reason I have no desire to see it again, and why I am actively rooting against it this Oscar season. Just because something happens, doesn’t mean that it should. Just because it works doesn’t mean that it’s right.

Zero Dark Thirty is not bad; it’s just not amazing either. If I was giving it a grade, it gets a C+ and most of that is just for effort. 

I

Bonus Article: Jeff, Who Cries at Home

I just wanted to give a shout-out to a little seen movie of 2012 (it officially released in 2011, but didn’t hit most theaters until 2012), and that is Jeff, Who Lives at Home.

Jeff, Who Lives at Home is a day in the life of brothers Jeff (Jason Segel) and Pat (Ed Helms). Jeff is a 30-year-old living in his mother’s basement, and Pat is trying to make a go of it with his business and his wife, despite the fact that he’s a prick. Jeff’s quest to find purpose and meaning in the universe soon envelopes Pat and by extension their mother (Susan Sarandon) and Pat’s wife (Judy Greer), until all of them a taken on a wholly unexpected and re-awakening journey.

As the title of this article implies, this movie was more than the little indie comedy I expected it to be. It’s advertised as a comedy, and there certainly were some very funny moments, but by the end of the 83 minute movie I was crying my eyes out – in a good way. Brothers Jay and Mark Duplass (makers of Cyrus, The Puffy Chair, and Baghead) wrote and directed this film, and I’m looking forward to whatever they have in store next. A lot of this story is about being in the right place at the right time, and allowing yourself to get there in ways that you didn’t plan or expect. Similarly, this movie was in my Netflix recommendations at just the right time. I’ve spent a good part of the last year feeling lost, like these people, which made the message of searching and connecting even more powerful.

Special mention should go to the score, by Michael Andrews. There is never a specified time period for this movie, but it really reminds me of the late 90’s in a lot of ways. The score also seems to reflect this period and brings to mind some of my childhood favorites while bringing a lightness and soulfulness to this odd little movie.

Apparently the Duplass Brothers lost money with this film, which was made for about 10 Million and only grossed 4. However, a great benefit for viewers is that Jeff, Who Lives at Home is now on Netflix. Let their loss be your gain, check out this wonderful, under-the-radar film.