It's entertaining but unfortunately a true story. Jennifer Matthews, who was one of the employees killed, was his protg, and an unnamed source has cited Rogers hiring of her as an example of the problems with the functioning of the counterterrorism system. The woman has also come under scrutiny for her contacts with filmmakers and others about the bin Laden mission, part of a broader internal inquiry into the agencys cooperation on the new movie and other projects, former officials said. They married in 2014 and she took his name. Maya is a CIA operative whose first experience is in the interrogation of prisoners following the Al Qaeda attacks against the U.S. on the 11th September 2001. I'm pretty sure they don't recruit at all. She has experienced violence, witnessed violence, been the target of violence, lost friends to violence, abetted violence. So I'm watching Zero Dark Thirty for about the fifth time and I'm at the part when the head of the CIA (Gandolfini) sits down at the lunch table with Maya. 2023 Cond Nast. There really are two Americas, and the horrific crime of Newtown highlights the division. After several years of pursuing leads, Maya believes that she may have found his whereabouts, and a U.S. Navy SEAL team is sent out to kill or capture bin Laden. Jessica (Jennifer Ehle) Jennifer Lynne Matthews. She hit reply all to an e-mail announcement of the awards, a second former CIA official said. Despite the filmmakers skill, the movie is nonetheless something of a litmus testhow a viewer reacts to the mission itself will likely be determined by how the viewer feels about bin Laden, the American military, and the so-called war on terror. Zero Dark Thirty operates on several levels, and it functions against itself: even as the movie stokes excitement for the hunt for bin Laden, it stands outside the mission andwithout actually posing questions about the operationposes the mission itself as a question, by way of canny and conspicuous omissions in content, strategies in representation, and control of tone. In his opposition to the films torture scenes, Senator John McCain reportedly linked Ammar to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, noting that the enhanced interrogation techniques did not provide [them] with key leads on bin Ladens courier, Abu Ahmed. (In the film, Ammar eventually does provide them with that information.) Naw. Available on Prime Video, iTunes, HBO Max. The character isnt just a cipher but a filtered-out cipher, reduced to her function as the chief bin Laden hunter. Even the hostage-takers have their reasons. . Maya is widely assumed to be based on a real CIA agent referred to as Jen in No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission that Killed Osama Bin Laden. Sold by: The raid itself is one long boring anti-climax, pretty much like the rest of this movie. The movie is exciting to watchthe director, Kathryn Bigelow, and the screenwriter, Mark Boal, organize the action to maximize suspense, subjecting Maya to a range of dangers and, at the point when she thinks that she has circumstantially located bin Laden, starting the equivalent of a ticking clock that stokes the thrills even more. Scheuer retired in 2021 as the Deputy Chief of Homeland and Strategic Threats, and in her subsequent interview (which was also the first interview she had ever done), she clarified that she had not been let go but had left the CIA on her own accord. In 2002, red-haired CIA analyst Alfreda Scheuer, then known by her maiden name Bikowsky, traveled to a secret CIA prison to watch the torture of al-Qaida suspect Abu Zubaydah, who was waterboarded and locked in a dog box, Senate investigators reported. Zero Dark Thirty's Maya is a singular force to be reckoned with and, as the film suggests, is something of a lone wolftwisting the arms of superiors to keep the hunt moving, baring her teeth at a conference table to get an operation approved, forever eating lunch alone since the death of her one . The thrust of her message, the former official said, was: You guys tried to obstruct me. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories, To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. | They sought me out in kindergarten. Given the realistic portrayal of events in Zero Dark Thirty, the audience wonders if actual incidents inspire it. Edit, Awards Unloved by most of his colleagues, some deem Roger responsible for the December 2009 Khost incident depicted in the film, which left seven CIA employees dead at the hands of an improperly vetted suicide bomber. I give it 4 STARS over all. and has been religiously devoted to bin Laden ever since. Refresh your browser window to try again. The movie suggests that those whose response to the attacks remains at the level of horror and anger are likely to accept extreme and morally repellent measures taken against anyone who seems connected with the perpetratorsand that these people hold a fanatical commitment to the death of bin Laden, a form of vengeance as justice. Why did she accept? After joining Alec Station, Scheuer rose to deputy chief and then, she says, its chief. Whats a company secret you can share now that you dont What quietly went away without anyone noticing? Zero Dark Thirty. Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark Thirty, and Claire Danes in Homeland. While the credits list Gandolfini only as CIA Director, and he is never named in the film, Gandolfini himself has acknowledged that he plays a barely veiled version of the current Secretary of Defense. All contents 2023 The Slate Group LLC. With the exception of Bissonnette and Nicholas Cheque, who was killed in December 2012 during a rescue mission in Afghanistan, the squads members remain anonymous. Following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, IMDb's Most Anticipated New TV Series of 2023. The spaces before your punctuation are bothersome. Others are public figures or agents whose true identities have already been revealed, but the film still declines to refer to these characters by their full real names. Both are often at odds with their superiors. (If there's romance in "Zero Dark Thirty" it is between hunter . As the paper noted, Danes has said that her character is loosely modeled on an actual CIA officer whom she has met at Langley. Still, the similarities between Carrie and Maya go beyond gender. Shes not Miss Congeniality, but thats not going to find Osama bin Laden, said a former CIA associate, who added that the attention from filmmakers sent waves of envy through the agencys ranks. The naysayers who thought her previous hit, "The Hurt Locker" was a fluke/had help from her famous ex-husband James Cameron( Titanic, Avatar and others) were incorrect and hopefully this movie will shut the naysayers up once and . Movie Review: "Zero Dark Thirty" By: Scott Pfeiffer Posted on: Monday, January 28, 2013 < < Back to It took a long time to get him. CIA operatives normally operate in a dark, shadowy world, but Scheuers experiences found the spotlight. Maya (Jessica Chastain) is the central figure: if we respond to Zero Dark Thirty as a thriller she will be our identification figure, but she has little psychological existence or emotional life: there is the section with Jessica (Jennifer Ehle) and the beginnings of a friendship is suggested and when Jessica is killed this provides Maya with . Why does Bigelow show only ones associated with Al Qaeda? And why she doesn't think she can answer is because of the security clearance the the somewhat public setting. A 2 hour 46 minute yawn. Was there really a dog? U.S. officials acknowledged that Boal met with Mayas real-life counterpart and other CIA officers, typically in the presence of someone from the agencys public affairs office. The character is played by Jessica Chastain. The story is a good one how women were very much a part of the INTEL part of the plan. A report in the Washington Post notes the unpopularity of Mayas real-life counterpart in the agency and describes Maya as a combative person quite a bit like the character played by Chastain. Ultimately, they launch a covert mission involving the Navy SEAL Team 6. Zero Dark Thirty Pic rivets for most of its running time by focusing on how one female CIA agent with a far-out hunch was instrumental in bringing down America's most wanted fugitive. Edit, Because the house was less than a mile from the Pakistani military academy, Pakistan's equivalent of Sandhurst/West Point. If Zero Dark Thirty is a roller-coaster ride, its one with blinkers, one that keeps its viewer facing forward and allows no glance away from the action. Red Letter Media sells VHS copy of "Nukie" on eBay for Harry Melling talks about leaving Dudley Dursley behind Press J to jump to the feed. The movies depiction of the practice of torture has come to dominate discussion. This is worth watching ONCE. If anything, a former CIA officer might be in academia and perhaps think Maya would've been fit for the agency, and would suggest that she'd give it a shot. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. Lets begin! Alternatively, she could have joined the armed forces straight out of high school and then joined the CIA from there.For the position 'Maya' held in the agency (a Targeter), it's extremely unlikely a high school student would be recruited. CIA Director (James Gandolfini) Leon Panetta. If you saw Argo and loved it you'll love this. Edit, "Zero Dark Thirty" is military slang for an unspecified time in the early hours of the morning before dawn. (Photos credited to Matthews family have since been used in articles, but Slate could not be sure by press time whether any were publicly available.) Jessica Chastain who plays the CIA analyst is absolutely incredible. Its a humanist cinema that constructs an ostensible humanism through the elimination of most of human experience. decluttr_store. Not all of the heroes that night were human. The first dramatic scenes show a secret interrogation room in which a captive is subjected to torture by American agents. Stills from Zero Dark Thirty by Jonathan Olley / 2012 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All rights reserved. Bazins doctrine took root not with the younger critics in his midst at Cahiers du Cinma, the future New Wave, but with later generations of filmmakersthose who, coming after the New Wave, couldnt outrun it or the history of cinema that it brought to the fore. agent, Maya (Jessica Chastain), whose meticulous and obstinate investigation culminates in the military raid on bin Ladens compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, that resulted in his death. Entdecke Zero Dark Thirty (DVD, 2013) in groer Auswahl Vergleichen Angebote und Preise Online kaufen bei eBay Kostenlose Lieferung fr viele Artikel! I know the CIA has like a "internship" program for high-school kids but you seek them out. The movies pseudo-objectivity is a willful ambiguity of a very distinct sort; its willful rejection of the inner life is a posturing stance of cool, an attitude of no attitude. This is the way that all of the movies characters are depicted, and the choice isnt just a way of keeping the narrative energy juiced; its a fundamental matter of aesthetics, an element of an aesthetic ideology that, for all the primal pleasure afforded by the movie, leaves it less than an empty experienceturns it into a deceptive one. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. When they finally get around to the actual raid, even that moves in slow motion. The Washington Post . Washingtonian magazine has suggested that Tom Donilon may also have partly inspired this character. It is possible Boal and Bigelow added that wrinkle in order to make the scene even more dramatic than it actually was. whose spare-tire cover was emblazoned with an image of a white rhino, reportedly linked Ammar to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Ammar is a composite of three Al Qaeda suspects, killed in December 2012 during a rescue mission in Afghanistan. The main assignment of the team is to neutralize Al Qaeda, with the capture and killing of. Boring, tedious and excessively attentive to minutia details while ignoring the main theme of the movie. Black Hawk Down author Mark Bowden also calls him a composite, and links him with a source named Mohammed al-Qhatani. It is one thing to sit. Just like Maya, "Jen" considers the probability of bin Laden being in the house at 100% whilst others are more cautious, she observes the mission from the control room, is there to meet the SEALs when they return with bin Laden's corpse and bursts out crying afterwards.In 2014, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report on American torture practices during the war on terror which referenced the influence of another CIA agent who was used as part of the composite character Maya. I do not blame the actors rather the writer. One of the merits of Zero Dark Thirty is that it takes government work very seriously and recognizes that the use of force is one of its fundamental responsibilities. Thermite or plastic explosives are commonly used. The films publicity materials say that Maya is based on a real person, but the filmmakers declined to elaborate. Women in War: Revisiting Zero Dark Thirty. View cart for details. It has saved lives. Bill Harlow, a fellow CIA member, denies that Brennan had anything to do with the techniques used during 2002-2003. A 2005 CIA inspector general report said the CIA failed to pass the travel information about al-Qaida attackers to the FBI before the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US. Did she have no family with whom she communicates, no friends with whom she discusses her work, her obsession with catching bin Laden, her ideas about life in general? He said, 'In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. right out of high school; why was she recruited? So declares the CIA Station Head in Pakistan about a new arrival in 2003, a "CIA targeter and subject-matter expert," Maya (Jessica Chastain). Zero Dark Thirty, after earning five Oscar nominations including Best Picture, finally went wide this past weekend and immediately shot to No. Edit. User Reviews What is a creepy fact about the human body? Cairo, a Belgian Malinois, was with the SEALS during the compound raid, clad in special dog armor that can withstand clouds of hot shrapnel, and ready to sniff around for explosives or a secret hiding place for Bin Laden. Yes The film is a cinematic page-turner, constructed on a simple architecture: the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden, mainly from the perspective of a C.I.A. After watching this movie I did some research and found that the director and producer were given access to the CIA analyst who found Bin Laden as well as the Seal team who captured him. Edit, SSE is sensitive site exploitation. 'You must be pretty important. What does Maya write (or draw?) The movie has been a source of controversy since it was revealed that the filmmakers including director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal were given extensive access to officials at the White House, the Pentagon and the CIA. Zero Dark Thirty is the same kind of film, but even more so. 3:20 PM. What is SSE? 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