Zero Dark Thirty

GREAT MOVIES: Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty (US, 2012) - he US government’s 10-year search for Osama bin Laden ended in success not because of lofty speeches and soaring heroics but, rather, hard work, intelligence and sheer tenacity. That’s the case director Kathryn Bigelow makes rather magnificently in Zero Dark Thirty, a taut, methodical retelling of the methods that led to the terrorist’s killing in May 2011 at the hands of American Navy SEALs. As a follow-up film to her Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker, this true-life thriller again finds Bigelow investigating the toll taken on those engaged in warfare, but her commitment to a dispassionate, stripped-down approach results in a film whose impact sneaks up on you, leaving you blindsided by its visceral final reels. 2012AA. RATING: 9