ZERO DARK THIRTY

This film is a problem for me. 

It is an important film for the historical

value of the topic.  It is a creative film, for approaching the topic

in a very realistic and non-theatrical style. It is a controversial film for depicting torture and sudden death as a very cold, matter of fact,in your face occurrence. 

This film plays hardball from the very 

beginning. The realistic style is both a blessing and a curse.  The decision to make this a story told in a methodical, heavy on procedure manner requires the filmmakers to avoid weighting the audience down with too much detail. 

There were times when we were told more than we needed to know about some minor details; adding to the two and a half hour running time.

While I hate to knock the sincere efforts of all involved - this is a film that does not really work and we all wanted it to work - the reality plot was in place, but the film dropped the ball and folks feel disloyal to say bad things about this topic, but as the title of another film about military action states - they went a

bridge too far - they were too ambitious.