Introduction

Zero Dark Thirty is a 2012 American thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal.

The film dramatises the nearly decade-long international manhunt for Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the September 11 attacks. This search leads to the discovery of his compound in Pakistan and the military raid that resulted in bin Laden’s death on 02 May 2011.

Jessica Chastain stars as Maya, a fictional CIA intelligence analyst, with Jason Clarke, Joel Edgerton, Mark Strong, James Gandolfini, Kyle Chandler, Stephen Dillane, Chris Pratt, Édgar Ramírez, Fares Fares, Jennifer Ehle, John Barrowman, Mark Duplass, and Frank Grillo in supporting roles. It was produced by Boal, Bigelow, and Megan Ellison, and independently financed by Ellison’s Annapurna Pictures. The film premiered in Los Angeles on 19 December 2012 and had its wide release on 11 January 2013.

Outline

Maya is a CIA analyst tasked with finding the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. In 2003, she is stationed at the US embassy in Pakistan. She and CIA officer Dan attend the black site interrogations of Ammar, a detainee with suspected links to several of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks and who is subjected to approved torture interrogation techniques. Ammar provides unreliable information on a suspected attack in Saudi Arabia, but reveals the name of the personal courier for bin Laden, Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. Other detainee intelligence connects courier traffic by Abu Ahmed between Abu Faraj al-Libbi (Yoav Levi) and bin Laden. In 2005, Faraj denies knowing about a courier named Abu Ahmed; Maya interprets this as an attempt by Faraj to conceal the importance of Abu Ahmed.

In 2009, during the Camp Chapman attack, Maya’s fellow officer and friend Jessica (Jennifer Ehle) is killed by a suicide bomber. A case manager that liked the Abu Ahmed lead shares with her an interrogation with a Jordanian detainee claiming to have buried Abu Ahmed in 2001. Maya learns what the CIA was told five years earlier: Ibrahim Sayeed travelled under the name of Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. Realising her lead may be alive, Maya contacts Dan, now a senior officer at the CIA headquarters. She speculates that the CIA’s photograph of Ahmed is that of his brother, Habeeb, who was killed in Afghanistan. Maya says that their beards and native clothes make the brothers look alike, explaining Ammar’s account of Ahmed’s “death” in 2001.

A Kuwaiti prince trades the phone number of Sayeed’s mother for a Lamborghini. Maya and her CIA team in Pakistan use electronic methods to eventually pinpoint a caller in a moving vehicle who exhibits behaviours that delay confirmation of his identity (which Maya calls tradecraft, thus confirming that the subject is likely a senior courier). They track the vehicle to a large urban compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, near the Pakistan Military Academy. After gunmen attack Maya while she is in her vehicle, she is recalled to Washington, D.C. as her cover is believed blown.

The CIA puts the compound under surveillance, but obtains no conclusive identification of bin Laden. The President’s National Security Advisor tasks the CIA with creating a plan to capture or kill bin Laden. Before briefing President Barack Obama, the CIA director, (James Gandolfini) , holds a meeting of his senior officers, who estimate that bin Laden is 60–80% likely to be in the compound. Maya, also in the meeting, places her confidence at 100%.

On 02 May 2011, the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment flies two stealth helicopters from Afghanistan into Pakistan with members of DEVGRU and the CIA’s SAD/SOG to raid the compound. The SEAL’s gain entry and kill a number of people in the compound, including one whom they believe is bin Laden. At a US base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, Maya confirms the identity of the corpse.

She boards a military transport back to the US, the sole passenger. She is asked where she wants to go and begins to cry.

Trivia

• Zero Dark Thirty received acclaim and appeared on 95 critics’ top ten lists of 2012.
• It was nominated in five categories at the 85th Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress for Chastain, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Film Editing, and won the award for Best Sound Editing, shared with Skyfall.
• It also earned Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Motion Picture – Drama, Best Director, and Best Screenplay, with Chastain winning the award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.
• The depiction of so-called enhanced interrogation generated controversy, with some critics describing it as pro-torture propaganda, as the interrogations are shown producing reliably useful and accurate information.
• Acting CIA director Michael Morell felt the film created the false impression that torture was key to finding bin Laden.
• Others described it as an anti-torture exposure of interrogation practices.
• Republican Congressman Peter T. King charged that the filmmakers were given improper access to classified materials, which they denied.
• An unreleased draft IG report published by the Project on Government Oversight, in June 2013, stated that former CIA Director Leon Panetta discussed classified information during an awards ceremony for the SEAL team that carried out the raid on the bin Laden compound.
• Unbeknownst to Panetta, screenwriter Boal was among the 1,300 present during the ceremony.

Production & Filming Details

• Director(s): Kathryn Bigelow.
• Producer(s): Kathryn Bigelow, Mark Boal, and Megan Ellison.
• Writer(s): Mark Boal.
• Music: Alexandre Desplat.
• Cinematography: Greig Fraser.
• Editor(s): Dylan Tichenor and William Goldenberg.
• Production: Columbia Pictures, First Light Pictures, and Annapurna Pictures.
• Distributor(s): Sony Pictures Releasing.
• Release Date: 19 December 2012 (US).
• Running Time: 157 minutes.
• Country: US.
• Language: English.