Two-for-one last night: "Zero Dark Thirty" and "The Impossible". The latter is a true story of an English family vacationing in Thailand when the tsunami hit. Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor. Enjoyed both very much but made for about four straight hours of tension.
I didn't think very much of 'The Impossible', but I really enjoyed 'Zero dark Thirty'. It seems to have got some lukewarm reviews, but i thought it was great. Easily my favourite of the Oscar nominated films so far.
Everybody keeps talking about whether the film justifies torure, but i think this is ridiculous. It's a story. I don't believe that countries should torture people, and I don't think generally that torture works as an interrogation methos. But obviously sometimes it works. The fact that something is sometimes true, doesn't make it true all the time.
In any case, its not as though the film makes the case uncategorically that it was all justified. (Spoiler alert, Bin Laden dies)
The main character believes that capturing (or killing) Bin Laden was a worthwhile priority, and worth the risk, and she persuades many of her superiors. That deosn't make her right. The film revelas just how much time, money, pain and death went into killing one man. I think at the end we're left to make our own judgement.
I suppose that it does make the case that UBL was using his house as a AQ base of oeprstions, and I'm not sure how true that was. That's fine. We don't know exactly what useful info was on all those hard drives in his house.
A lot of people have complained about the movie, but not actually seen it. It's worth watching. It's a well structured story and well-acted.