Directed by Kathryn Bigelow

In a thrilling and heart throbbing film, “Zero Dark Thirty” outlines C.I.A. Operation Neptune’s Spear Navy Seal raid and assassination of Osama Bin Laden on May 1, 2011. The movie follows female C.I.A. agent Maya, played by Jessica Chastain, and her quest to discover the hideout of the most wanted person in the world. Maya is a fictional character who portrays the anonymous, female C.I.A. agent who played a key role in planning Operation Neptune’s Spear.

Golden Globe winning and Oscar nominated film “Zero Dark Thirty” was hooking from the get-go, opening with a black screen only with muffled voices from recorded phone calls on 9/11.

Chastain’s remarkable acting style encapsules Maya’s head strong, determined and feisty attitude as one of the only women in a field dominated by men. She beautifully portrays a character heavily under stress but who can appear cool and collected, even when under fire.

As Maya watches her C.I.A. colleagues get killed around her, she begins to obsess over finding Bin Laden and in a way, believing she still lives to finish the job.

Although we know how the operation ends, the suspense and thrill the movie deliberately employs almost leaves the audience wondering what actually will happen.  The wariness and horror of knowing a bomb could explode at any second throughout the movie was engaging and never gave the audience a break.

What set this move apart from many other dramas was its ability to seem like real life and not just some melodramatic thriller. There was no intense music, no running through hallways and no weeping audience. It was unbelievable yet real life.

Movie critics and the C.I.A. have claimed that this film inaccurately portrays torture as a form through which the C.I.A. obtained information regarding Bin Laden’s whereabouts, while torture is actually an ineffective form of gleaning information.

Surprisingly, the movie stayed relatively unbiased, politically. President Obama was never shown giving the directive to run the operation and was even portrayed as a figure who was against all forms of torture regardless of the information that could potentially be gleaned from this method.

All in all, “Zero Dark Thirty” was the perfect portrayal of the assassination and manhunt that kept the world waiting and watching for ten years.

-Anisha