Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

Director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal scored Oscars but little box office traction with 2009’s Iraq-set “Hurt Locker.” In “Zero Dark Thirty,” they go bigger and bolder by following the CIA and then SEAL Team Six as they hunt and eventually kill Osama bin Laden. 

This is an openly controversial film. It invites scorn and bravado, as does any good piece of journalism. And this is a hard-hitting news piece a la spy/war film. A fantastic, bewildering, white-knuckle thriller, hard to easily grasp on a first viewing, but mesmerizing. In short, one of the year's best, most complex films. A must see.

After we hear 911 calls from that terrible Tuesday over a black screen, we delve for 40-some minutes into the capture and torture or an apparent terrorist at the hands of CIA operatives, as well as the back office paperwork and myriad details of the largest manhunt in U.S. history. The torture scenes hit hard. Our government denies torture ever took place. Nothing happened. I tend to trust the film. Torture happened. The detainee -- one of scores of captured men seen put through various acts of distress -- cracks a peep about a courier for bin Laden. From there a tiny, illusive thread is tracked for a decade by Mia (Jessica Chastain), a CIA field agent who has no other mission in life but to find the Al Qaeda leader. 

Leads dead-end, attacks rock London and elsewhere, colleagues are killed, and Mia is targeted by would-be assassins. It makes her more determined. Mia is an enigma, her inner character only partially revealed via child-made drawings on a wall and a daring taunt tossed at Leon Panetta (James Gandolfini), where she declares herself the “mother fucker” who found the mastermind of 3,000 deaths. She also makes a crack at him over lunch, and constantly hounds her supervisors. She is one rocking red head. Angry.

The backlash against this film is insanely grotesque. Many liberals want a neon sign damning torture as bad. Poor dears. Conservatives just hate the idea bin Laden went down on Obama’s watch. Jack asses. Both are off-base, lost between ignorance and delusion, and not a little denial. 

The last hour, where bin Laden -– barely seen -- meets his end, is flat-out riveting in its stark matter-of-fact rawness. Like the great book “No Easy Day” by SEAL Team Six member Mark Owen, “Zero” somberly lays out the cards of today’s reality. Here, flatly stated, no holds barred, it says we torture to get intel, and then we act on it. To save the day, or so we hope. Sure Bush, Cheney, and our current government call it, what, “enhanced interrogation techniques”? A quick note: As with any film, dramatic license is taken, most especially during this climatic raid of the bin Laden compound -- see, Bigelow and Boal have their SEALS talk -- talk! -- inside the chopper as they approach their target, and then on the ground -- shouting and what not -- and that stuff never happens. Silence, always. Any one remotely familiar with Army tactics knows that. Paint ball war enthusiasts know that. You shout, talk, yell, you might as well draw a hand flare to bring on enemy fire. It is a small, but significant deviation.

“Hurt Locker” and every film ever made, including “Lincoln” take dramatic license, add a flare, a chase, a drink, a conversation. It is drama. That does not take away from the case of the film, the depths America goes, and likely has gone in the past, but never debated. Damn sure in World War II, enemy combatants I am sure were ... interrogated to the fullest extent. 

And how does that stack against the terrorists? Have we sunk to their level? Recall the days when Saddam in Iraq caught our airmen, he was beaten and tortured. The U.S. balked. Now we do that, and call it patriotic duty to God. I know people in the Army who have looked me square in the face and say they witnessed it, and it works. Do they not lie, I ask. To get out of the pain? Sure, they say. But you compare the different lies to find the truth. Morality, mercy has no bearing. This is the way it is for them, no questions.

If Iran or Syria did these acts to our troops, bombs would fall. Rage would flame across America. Fact. Hell, yes, it's disturbing to see here, the shit and piss, the man stuffed in a box like laundry. The food games. The dog walk scene. They ought to make any sane viewer cringe, to hate the action on screen. Boal and Bigelow do not allow us to flinch, and we are forced to watch, and see it eat up the perpetrators, and they allow us to maybe, just maybe, see -- most disturbingly -- into the mindset that it is worth the price. 

They do not judge, or comment, or place in mock-shocked characters. They want the anger, the debate. The critics be damned, let them foam. And what happens? They get investigated. They. Get. Investigated. By our Congress. To squash any talk on torture. It is a sick ironic twist of our new American values.

As with “Lincoln,” this is a vital film that transcends Hollywood entertainment. It’s a mirror of our grim reality. And Mia -– based on a real CIA agent, but also fictionalized and combined with the actions of others like her -– is our best hope of a good future. Chastain carries the film on her back, her final scene tearing the lid open on her greatness as the leading actress of her generation. yes, she is an agent, but she is no super spy. She does not pop a gun, kick butt, or go James Bond. Her weapons is her brain, her determination, he eye for detail and language, and a laptop. The new weapon of our day, the laptop.

Bigelow is making the best war films of our time. She is tackling the effects of violence on our warriors and nation, not mindless gun porn. Wonderfully ironic as our military finally allows women into combat, and conservatives blanch hard about old-time values: A

The Hurt Locker (2009)

*Update 29 March 2010. Third viewing.

No film in 2009 hit me as hard as “The Hurt Locker” did, and stayed with me as long. I’ve seen “Locker” no fewer than three times, waffling back and forth between the sheer magnitude of its emotional and gritty depiction of war and the jarring factual errors throughout. I first gave the film an “A” and had it at the top of my 2009 Best List. Then it fell, with a “B,” off the list. The third viewing, I was blown away again. What a great film, flaws and all.

What better recommendation can I give a film than to say it is, quite literally, unforgettable. Unshakable.

Since my third viewing, “Locker” has won Best Picture, Best Adopted Screenplay and Best Director. So, if you’re a film buff, you well know the story. Directed Kathryn Bigelow, who made once kick-ass action films such as “Point Break” and "Near Dark,” this nonpolitical (thank God) war film follows a U.S. Army bomb disposal unit in Baghdad in 2004, when the situation was grim as hell. To put it mildly, and non-politically.

In a white-knuckle opening, the unit (led by Guy Pearce) finds itself tracking an IED. The team must dismantle the bomb with careful precision, or risk leveling a city block. You can see the gears cranking away behind Pearce’s eyes as he carefully prepares his mission. It’s a near impossible task.

Unlike almost any previous war, though, the enemy here can be anyone within proximity, old or young, shopkeeper or bystander. And they need not carry a gun. Cell phones detonate bombs. Kites signal attacks or any myriad of deadly messages. A guy with a video camera is filming not for pleasure or YouTube, but for study in warfare. Like those football game reels that teams watch before meeting an opponent. The enemy. All this, or near all this, is communicated in 10 minutes. Maybe less. Brilliantly.

That’s the thrust of this film, back in my mind as one of the year’s best, and the tension never lights up.

Pearce’s character is slain within the first few minutes. And his replacement is William James (Jeremy Renner), a hot-head thrill seeker who does not grind the gears in his brain. The gears ain’t there. He just goes. No questions, no hesitation. He’s an adrenaline junkie, and if bombs or snipers don’t kill him and his unit mates (Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty), then that recklessness might. He loves war.

It’s a great character, the "Rebel Without a Cause" of today, and he is fully explored when James returns home – briefly – for a stay with his son and girlfriend (Evangeline Lilly of “Lost”). James can rip apart a bomb-laden car with shocking disregard for safety. It’s natural. Yet, picking cereal at a grocery is difficult. It’s a helluva tricky character, and Renner ("The Assassination of Jesse James") pulls it off with grace and cool. The guy is a star.

If the film states that American soldiers may have changed, possibly hooked on violence, it’s with good or understandable reason. The rules of war have not just changed. There are no rules. This is beyond urban warfare. Children are sliced neck to groin, and planted with C4 explosives. Or they might be trained to kill. Business men are kidnapped and strapped with bombs, and their pleading brings out sympathetic American soldiers to help. Or they might be trained to kill, and are great at acting. No one knows for sure. And “Locker” provides no answers.

How can anyone deal with these pressures and not fall apart? (This U2 lyric comes to mind: “I’m not broken, but you can see the cracks.”) That James has become addicted to this life is the true horror the film, and the riddle that wraps around your brain.

At the same time, writer Mark Boal makes sure that James is not representative of all U.S. soldiers. The soul of Pearce’s careful, concerned bomb disposal engineer seems to hover long after the character is killed. As well, Anthony Mackie's soldier is upright and brilliant. The younger unit member is scared for his life, and those of others.

Bigelow shows all of this with no need to politicize or point fingers. It blows my mind this woman is not cranking out quality films every year, especially in a world where Michael Bay has unlimited budgets and freedom, no matter if the end result is pure garbage. She deserved the Oscar. And more.

I know the film is not realistic of modern fighting and bomb disposal units in Iraq. And this is with my zero knowledge of combat. I'm a liberal weenie. My brother is the soldier, now in Iraq, God love him. I well know bomb disposal guys don’t clear buildings or play the part of sniper team. Other people have those tasks. For damn sure I know soldiers don’t ever sneak off buildings. And bomb units don’t go out alone on missions. Ever. Death, jail, capture or any number of terrible fates await such actions.

The film skates awful close to the dreaded territory of “CSI” and “Law & Order” that bastardize criminal investigators with false sci-fi equipment and cops who go ape freaky during suspect questioning.

The direction, acting, editing, cinematography and the drama all still excel. And it’s human truths scream real, too. Many classic films, war or crime, have taken liberties, while reaming true to the conflicting, changing human spirit, and they are on my all-time favorites list. Certainly “Platoon” skated close to more of a symbolic, Faustian story than absolute realism. Hypocritical? Bullshit? Maybe. I won’t say I’m not the first and full of the second. But I can’t shake this film. It’s too good. It's flat out, indeed, one of the year's best and most important film. Faults and all.

Many cameos up the star quota of the film: Pearce, Ralph Fiennes and David Morse. That their roles don’t distract is further testament to Bigelow. And Renner. A

Near Dark (1987)

"Near Dark" is a cool, twisted, mid-1980s Western spin on vampire horror films, but with more blood and guts then a dozen Dracula films. And only a trace of the budget, too.

The plot: A young rancher (Adrian Pasdar, now of "Heroes") meets cute at night with a young woman (Jenny Wright) in a small Midwest town. They flirt, drive around, kiss and then she bites him. And the cowboy goes loony -- sucking blood and burning in the sunlight. He joins the woman's makeshift family of vampires (Lance Henriksen and Bill Paxton, among them), driving across rural America and picking off victims for late night dinner. Except our hero won't kill.

This movie is a blast, and ignores the fangs, flying stunts and turning bats of most genre films and books. Briliant director Kathryn Bigelow ("Point Break") lays the blood on thick, and it's sick ghoulish fun. Paxton is the standout in the film, clearly having a gleeful, devilish good time as the meanest of the blood-suckers. The only negative: The last scene. An added note: Check out how many actors here worked in "Aliens," which gets a quick reference early in the film.

That Bigelow isn't making any more films is more proof of Hollywood's strapped down sexist conservatism where women, blacks and gays face extra scrutiny for every misstep. A-