Questions on the hunt for Osama bin Laden
Zero Dark Thirty (cert. 15) depicts the long search for Osama bin Laden and the role of one CIA officer, dedicated just to that task. Jessica Chastain stars as Maya, whose only job is to chase clues that might uncover the whereabouts of the leader of al-Qaeda.
There’s ambiguity about whether torture played any part in finding bin Laden. Director Kathryn Bigelow ( The Hur t Locker) seems to think it did but argues that her depiction of torture doesn’t mean endorsement, while some security experts reckon the false information given by those tortured was a distraction from the search.
We’re not talking the rack or even far away. In the end, money rather than torture seems to loosen tongues, and eventually Maya identifies a compound in Abbottabad, not far from the Pakistani equivalent of West Point, as bin Laden’s lair.
Persuading colleagues and the CIA director (James Gandolini, miscast) then the presidential staff that bin Laden really is there is not easy, as Maya every day scrawls on a screen the number of days since she reported his hideout.
The decision to attack is made, and on the night Maya’s involvement is rather like the Dambusters scene waiting for the code word that a dam had been breached (though the code for
Flight (dir. Robert Zemeckis, cert. 15) might not have the gravitas of a historical story, but it’s a deeply satisfying study of one man’s battle against substance abuse. Denzel Washington may even give Daniel Day-Lewis’s Lincoln a bit of competition for best actor Oscar® as an airline pilot whose skill and instinct may have saved lives, but whose drink and drug habits put his career at risk.
Captain “Whip” Whitaker (Washington) wakes from sleep with flight attendant Katerina (Nadine Velazquez), and counteracts the effect of alcohol with a snort of cocaine – then dons his uniform and joins co-pilot Ken (Brian Geraghty) in the cockpit of his airliner to fly from Orlando to Atlanta.
It’s a bumpy take-off through a storm, but that’s nothing compared to the technical failure that plunges the plane into an uncontrolled dive. Whip’s outrageous decision to turn the plane upside down and fly it to some sort of open ground to crash land saves him and most of the crew and passengers.
The tense flight scenes are brilliantly done, but the bulk of the film is about Whip’s behaviour. He wakes in hospital where his union rep Charlie Anderson (Bruce Greenwood) is present, then calls for his friend Harling Mays (John Goodman) to bring cigarettes, but refuses an offer of something stronger.
There’s a well-done scene in the hospital stairwell of illicit smoking. Whip finds there Nicole (Kelly Reilly), who’s recovering after a heroin overdose, and cancer patient Mark Mellon (Tommy Kane), whose “God gave me cancer” philosophy is one strand of the religious thought that runs through the film.
Two of Whip’s crew are practising Christians, and members of a church near the crash site help survivors and hold open-air prayer on the site for days afterwards, though Whip’s reaction to seeing this is to wonder whose God would allow such devastation. Fate, miracle, and providence are the stuff of that aspect of the film.
It’s when Whip tries to deal with his addictions, with the help of Nicole until she abandons him as beyond help, that Washington’s performance moves into award-winning territory. Suspicious of union lawyer Hugh Lang (Don Cheadle), who buries Whip’s toxicology report on a technicality, Whip eventually embraces the reality that his future career, and escaping a long jail sentence, depend on staying sober for the National Transportation Safety Board hearing.
There’s incredulity when, after Whip has stayed a few days at Charlie’s home, he’s put in a hotel for the night before the hearing, with accidental access to a minibar full of booze. It leads to another visit from Harling Mays, this time with Goodman channelling his role as Walter from The Big Lebowski, to provide cocaine to get Whip fit for the hearing.
The simulation of the crash is fairly dramatic in itself, but so is the moment of truth as Whip faces a choice of freedom that depends on destroying the reputation of his dead friend. Some of the religious aspects may grate – Ken’s wife declaring “Praise Jesus!” rather too easily – but it’s a classic tale of redemption.
Steve Parish