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. She is a reluctant participant in extreme duress applied to the detainees, but believes that the truth may only be obtained through such tactics. For several years, she is single-minded in her pursuit of leads to uncover the whereabouts of Al Qaeda’s leader, Osama Bin Laden. Finally, in 2011, it appears that her work will pay off, and a U.S. Navy SEAL team is sent to kill or capture Bin Laden. But only Maya is confident Bin Laden is where she says he is.
For a decade, an elite team of intelligence and military operatives, working in secret across the globe, devoted themselves to a single goal: To find and eliminate Osama Bin Laden. Zero Dark Thirty reunites the Oscar winning team of director-producer Kathryn Bigelow and writer-producer Mark Boal (The Hurt Locker) for the story of history’s greatest manhunt an the world’s most dangerous man.
Zero Dark Thirty is an American action thriller war film directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal. Billed as “the story of history’s greatest manhunt for the world’s most dangerous man”, the film dramatizes the decade-long manhunt for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. This search eventually leads to the discovery of his compound in Pakistan, and the military raid on it that resulted in his death on May 2, 2011.
About the Story (2013)
Maya, a young U.S. Central Intelligence Agency officer in 2003, has spent her entire brief career since graduating from high school focused solely on gathering intelligence related to Osama bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda, following the terrorist organization’s September 11 attacks in the United States. She has just been reassigned to the U.S. embassy in Pakistan to work with a fellow officer, Dan. During the first months of her assignment, Maya often accompanies Dan to a black site for his continuing interrogation of Ammar al-Baluchi, a detainee with suspected links to several of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks.
Dan subjects the detainee to torture, including waterboarding, and humiliation. He and Maya eventually trick Ammar into divulging that an old acquaintance, who is using the alias Abu Ahmed, is working as a personal courier for bin Laden. Other detainees corroborate this, with some claiming Abu Ahmed delivers messages between bin Laden and a man referred to as Abu Faraj. In 2005, Abu Faraj is apprehended by the C.I.A. and local police in Pakistan. Maya interrogates Abu Faraj under torture, but he continues to deny knowing a courier with such a name. Maya interprets this as an attempt by Abu Faraj to conceal the importance of Abu Ahmed.
Maya continues to sift through masses of data and information, using a variety of technology, hunches and sharing insights. She concentrates on finding Abu Ahmed, determined to use him to find bin Laden. During a span of five years, she survives the 2008 Islamabad Marriott Hotel bombing as well as being shot at in her car by armed men. Dan, departing on reassignment, warns Maya about a possible change in politics, suggesting that the new administration may prosecute those officers who had been involved in torture.
A fellow analyst researching Moroccan intelligence archives comes to Maya and suggests that Abu Ahmed is Ibrahim Sayeed. Maya agrees and contacts Dan, who is working at the C.I.A. headquarters. Maya has found that Ibrahim Sayeed had a brother, Habib, and theorizes the C.I.A.’s supposed photograph of Abu Ahmed was of Habib, as he was said to bear a striking resemblance to Ibrahim and was killed in Afghanistan.
Dan uses C.I.A. funds to purchase a Lamborghini for a Kuwaiti prince in exchange for the telephone number of Sayeed’s mother. The C.I.A. traces calls to the mother. One caller’s persistent use of tradecraft to avoid detection leads Maya to conclude the caller is Abu Ahmed. At Maya’s behest and with the support of her supervisors, numerous C.I.A. operatives are deployed to search for and identify Abu Ahmed. They locate him in his vehicle and eventually track him to a large urban compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, near the Pakistan Military Academy.
The C.I.A. puts the compound under heavy surveillance for several months, using a variety of methods. Although they are confident from circumstantial evidence that bin Laden is there, they cannot prove this photographically. Meanwhile, the President’s National Security Advisor tasks the C.I.A. with producing a plan to capture or kill bin Laden if it can be confirmed that he is in the compound. An agency team devises a plan to use two top-secret stealth helicopters (developed at Area 51) flown by the Army’s 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment to secretly enter Pakistan and insert members of the United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group to raid the compound. Before briefing President Barack Obama, the C.I.A. Director holds a meeting of his top officials, who assess only a 60–80% chance that bin Laden rather than another high-value target is living in the compound. Maya, also in attendance, states the chances are 100%.
The raid is approved and is executed on May 2, 2011. Although execution is complicated by one of the helicopters crashing, the SEALs gain entry and kill a number of people within the compound, among them a man on the compound’s top floor who is revealed to be bin Laden. They bring bin Laden’s body back to a U.S. base in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, where Maya visually confirms the identity of the corpse. Maya is last seen boarding a military transport to return to the U.S. and sitting in its vast interior as its only passenger. The pilot asks her where she wants to go but she does not reply. He leaves for the cockpit and she weeps.
Zero Dark Thirty (2013)
Directed by: Kathryn Bigelow
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Joel Edgerton, Scott Adkins, Mark Strong, Jennifer Ehle
Screenplay by: Mark Boal
Production Design by: Jeremy Hindle
Cinematography by: Greig Fraser
Film Editing by: William Goldenberg, Dylan Tichenor
Costume Design by: George L. Little
Set Decoration by: Lisa Chugg
Art Direction by: Ben Collins, Rod McLean
Music by: Alexandre Desplat
Screenplay by: R for strong violence including brutal disturbing images, and for language.
Studio: Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures
Release Date: January 11th, 2013
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