It’s been 12 years since I final watched Katherine Bigelow’s incredible battle movie in regards to the looking and killing of Osama Bin Laden, Zero Darkish Thirty. The film was launched a mere 20 months after the raid on the Bin Laden compound by SEAL Crew Six that took the terrorist out. That may be a fairly exceptional turnaround time, and after I noticed it, I actually puzzled how correct the film was. Not too long ago, Netflix dropped a superb docuseries within the 2025 TV schedule known as American Manhunt: Osama Bin Laden, and so I made a decision to rewatch the Jessica Chastain-led movie and see how correct it actually was.
The Reply Is Sophisticated, However Principally, The Film Does A Nice Job
I’ll admit I’m no skilled on covert affairs or the main points of the Bin Laden hunt, however I’m sufficiently old to have adopted all of the information from 9/11 till that fateful day in Could 2011 when then-President Obama made the announcement that Bin Laden had been positioned and killed. I knew the fundamentals: the raid by SEAL Crew Six occurred in a compound in a small city in Pakistan, and a variety of individuals in Bin Laden’s household and a few shut associates have been taken out. Past that, I did not know a lot.
The primary detailed account of the mission I ever actually noticed was, in truth, Zero Darkish Thirty in 2013. I’m an enormous fan of historic films, and although this historical past was latest, it fell proper right into a style I really like, but additionally considered one of which I’m inherently skeptical. Even the very best films primarily based on actual historic occasions typically make a hash of the reality, or no less than change sufficient to make the reality somewhat murkier for varied causes.
This was very true of a film like Zero Darkish Thirty. How a lot data was actually out there to the general public and the filmmakers so quickly after the occasion that modified the world? This was a covert affair led principally by the CIA. There have to be some points they hadn’t mentioned publicly but, certainly, I advised myself. Effectively, after watching the Netflix sequence, and assuming the CIA brokers interviewed in it aren’t mendacity (I do know, I do know, “assume” at my very own danger), it seems Zero Darkish Thirty was fairly correct.
There Are Some Modifications, Of Course, However The Largest Is Effectively Performed
One of many largest adjustments, and one which appears to have drawn essentially the most ire from consultants, is that Bigelow condensed a variety of CIA analysts into one character, Maya, performed by Jessica Chastain in considered one of her best roles. Having the character performed by a lady was no mistake, nor was it Bigelow pushing any form of agenda; it was considerably factually correct.
One factor that actually caught my consideration in American Manhunt was simply how most of the analysts who labored on the Bin Laden case, particularly those who refused to let it go even when the Bush administration de-emphasized the search, have been girls. It makes complete sense for a feminine character to symbolize these throughout the CIA who refused to surrender the hunt and labored till he was discovered.
The Oscar-nominated Zero Darkish Thirty just isn’t good traditionally, particularly the depiction of torture, however in a broad sense, the film will get the story of the hunt appropriate. For that, I’ve a brand new respect for it past simply my admiration for it being an ideal film.