4.5 stars

Starring: Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Kyle Chandler, Jennifer Ehle, Mark Strong, Joel Edgerton, Chris Pratt, James Gandolfini

Rating: R, for considerable violence, torture and profanity

Strong acting highlights this fact-based account of the CIA’s search for Osama bin Laden

By Derrick Bang
Enterprise film critic

Osama bin Laden was executed on May 2, 2011. Given the realities of Hollywood development time, production and post-production work, this film’s arrival in the waning days of 2012 is nothing short of remarkable.

That the result is this riveting, is icing on the cake.

It’s easy to understand why director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal would select this project as a follow-up to their Oscar-laden triumph with 2008’s “The Hurt Locker.” Although lacking that film’s nail-biting intensity, “Zero Dark Thirty” carries the same suspenseful atmosphere of docu-drama verisimilitude. Given the topic, American audiences also can’t help experiencing more than a little cathartic exhilaration.

Despite the perception that fact-based, politics-laden procedural thrillers are box-office poison, we’ve recently been gifted with two crackling efforts: this one and “Argo.” Both manage the impressive feat of generating tension and building to exciting climaxes, despite our knowing the respective stories’ outcomes long before entering the theater.

That’s no small thing. Scripter William Goldman’s handling of 1976’s “All the President’s Men” remains the superlative template for depicting dull-as-dirt research work in a manner that becomes not just fascinating, but downright compelling; Boal obviously took its lessons to heart. “Zero Dark Thirty” spends a great deal of time watching a lone CIA analyst beat her head against a vague investigative wall, yet these efforts never seem dull or repetitive.

In part, that’s because we know the stakes involved from recent history, and we’re genuinely curious to learn more about what went into this impressively successful covert operation: how the key pieces of information were determined and then properly analyzed. And if Boal takes some dramatic license along the way, well, that’s fine; cinema places its own unique requirements on narrative flow, not the least of which is building our emotional involvement with these characters.

Which brings us to the best weapon in Bigelow’s capable filmmaking arsenal: star Jessica Chastain. As the CIA analyst in question, she drives this story with — by turns — calm intelligence and righteous fury. She’s never less than wholly persuasive, whether cycling grimly through surveillance footage or standing up to overly cautious superiors too concerned about their political reputations.

The story begins in the aftermath of 9/11, as Chastain’s Maya, a CIA analyst and “targeter,” arrives in Pakistan on assignment from D.C. She joins Dan (Jason Clarke), a CIA interrogator trying to extract worthwhile information — by any means necessary — from a hostile detainee (Reda Kateb, as Ammar, in a harrowing, soul-snuffing performance).

The depth of Chastain’s performance emerges immediately here: Although clearly not wishing to be present — Maya’s face actually turns grey — she dare not display weakness in front of her new colleague. At the same time, she’s intrigued, in a clinical way, by what is taking place, and whether such torture is likely to produce useful results.

Maya’s strength lies in psychological evaluation; it’s the primary reason she was sent from the States. It’s therefore telling that when Ammar finally does open up, it’s through guile, rather than physical humiliation. Score one for Maya.

She needs the credibility, having joined a cluster of somewhat condescending agents under the command of Islamabad Station Chief Joseph Bradley (Kyle Chandler). They’ve been at this for a while; they think they know how to distinguish good information from outright lies. Maya immediately gets into a subtle pissing match with Jessica (Jennifer Ehle), who represents the CIA’s “old school,” Cold War-based methods of seeking leads.

Maya soon hones in on a name: Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, identified as some sort of al-Qaeda message courier. Over time, this shadowy individual is cited by several detainees, but the context varies: People claim to know him but never have seen him; he’s a “disappeared person” or even dead and buried. But Maya senses something significant.

Not that anybody believes her.

Years pass; little — if any — progress is made. Other successful terrorist attacks take place in London and at the Islamabad Marriott Hotel, where — conveniently, for the purposes of this story — Maya and Jessica have met for a drink. The personal danger becomes too great; Maya is shipped back to Langley, where she now reports directly to George (Mark Strong), head of the Afghanistan and Pakistan Divisions of the CIA Counter Terrorism Center.

But she has left a surveillance operation behind, having persuaded Islamabad colleagues that — maybe, perhaps — there really is something to the Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti lead.

By this point, Chastain’s Maya has become a figure of dour, angry determination, no longer able to endure the condescending “wait and see” stonewalling of colleagues and superiors who lack her conviction. We’ve already seen her uncork one helluva tantrum with Bradley, back in Islamabad; now in Langley, in the closest we get to a genuinely amusing running gag, she furiously notates the days passed, with no activity, in red marker pen on George’s office window.

Production designer Jeremy Hindle deserves considerable credit for this film’s aura of authenticity, from the ambitious Abbottabad compound to the cramped corner desk where Maya does most of her initial work in Islamabad. Alexandre Desplat contributes a minimalist score that most often works subconsciously, as a means to increase anxiety, and then builds to throbbing intensity during the nighttime SEAL raid. (“Zero Dark Thirty,” in passing, is military jargon for the dark of night, and also the moment — 12:30 a.m. — when the SEALS first set foot in the compound.)

Boal and Bigelow worked rigorously to adhere, as much as possible, to established fact (and whatever classified information Boal reportedly obtained during chats with undisclosed CIA contacts). Maya’s character is based on an actual CIA analyst; the same is true of Jessica’s character. Joseph Bradley’s “outing” by elements of the Pakistani spy agency ISI references the December 2010 criminal complaint filed against a supposed American CIA section chief identified as Jonathan Banks, in connection with a U.S. drone attack that killed innocent civilians. At all times, in every respect, these events look, sound and feel authentic.

Which brings us to the sticky matter of the “enhanced interrogation” session that opens this film. This rising controversy, involving much beating of chests and high-level denials, threatens to overshadow the great work that Bigelow and her team have wrought … which is just plain silly.

First, and most crucially, who can really say? The folks possibly involved in such activity sure as hell won’t talk. Only a naïve fool would imagine that such lengths haven’t been taken, in the pursuit of information under extreme circumstances. Blaming a movie for supposedly “sullying” American ideals is no more than cheap political theater.

Second, it is a movie. However accurate the extensive underpinnings, we’re dealing with drama here … not a documentary. Chris Terrio’s screenplay for “Argo” takes huge liberties with the third-act escape sequence, which wasn’t anywhere near that suspenseful in real life, but I don’t see Ben Affleck getting raked over the coals for this “betrayal of truth.”

At the end of the day, we should judge “Zero Dark Thirty” solely on its ability to entertain, enlighten and hold our attention. And in those respects, it’s quite impressive.

— Read more of Derrick Bang’s film criticism at http://derrickbang.blogspot.com. Comment on this review at www.davisenterprise.com

“Not Fade Away”

Two stars

Starring: John Magaro, James Gandolfini, Bella Heathcote, Jack Huston, Will Brill, Molly Price, Christopher McDonald

Rating: R, for pervasive profanity, considerable drug use, sexual candor and fleeting nudity

Disinterested cast can’t breathe any life into this ode to early rock ’n’ roll

By Derrick Bang
Enterprise film critic

Viewers born after 1965, or thereabouts, won’t have the faintest idea what writer/director David Chase is trying to express in this film.

Heck, I lived through this transitional period just like he did, and I barely followed this storyline.

Chase apparently assumes that the 1960s musical revolution, and all it involved, are somehow grafted into the brain cells of every American, regardless of age. Granted, the obvious high points have become (in)famous: the long hair, the mod clothes, the casual sex and even more casual drug use, the ever-widening generation gap made worse by mounting contempt for the violent quagmire in Vietnam.

But these are mere backdrop elements, against which the main characters in Chase’s “Not Fade Away” play out their restless angst … and that’s where this film falls apart.

We’ve absolutely no sense of the young people at the heart of this story: no concept of what they’re thinking from one moment to the next, or why some of them are so rude and self-centered, or why others are self-destructive. We get no back-stories, no insightful clues, no confessional moments of lucidity. These characters speak in non sequiturs — when they speak at all — and free-associate stray thoughts with snarky contempt, as if daring us to make sense of anything.

Chase apparently expects us to read everybody’s mind, but that’s impossible; his stars haven’t the acting chops to get anywhere near the level of introspective clarity we so desperately need. And, as if aware of this problem, Chase and cinematographer Eigil Bryld rely tediously, tiresomely on sulky, coldly aloof close-ups, as if searching for significance in the pores of each face.

Where is the fire, the acting gusto, that Chase brought to his work on HBO’s “The Sopranos”?

And slow? Oh, goodness; trends could rise and fall during the time it takes this morose, 112-minute film to drag to a conclusion.

The topper is an elliptical “conclusion” that arrives several scenes after Chase blows an opportunity to stop at a much more logical moment. Like several other recent films, Chase hasn’t the slightest idea when to stop, and instead gives us several false endings before settling on the least of the bunch.

I have learned, through long experience, to be wary of intimate projects that are deeply personal to filmmakers; in most cases, they can’t get out of their own way. The results are disappointing at best, mawkish self-indulgent at worst. “Not Fade Away” most often leans toward the latter.

Chase has explained, during numerous recent interviews, that the 1960s represented a tipping point in his younger life: the galvanic moment when, following the Beatles’ eruption on the American scene, he (to quote liner notes) “served time as a drummer in an obscure New Jersey band with bigger dreams than accomplishments.” Chase had the wisdom to abandon this tantalizing fantasy for a career in film, although he frequently has acknowledged these roots with a talent for marrying images with iconic pop and rock anthems.

And, indeed, Chase layers this film with brilliantly employed songs of the era; I’ll give him credit for establishing a solid sense of time and place. Too bad he didn’t cast his film with equal care, or give his characters any truly meaningful dialogue.

We meet the brooding, fringe-dwelling Douglas (John Magaro) during his senior year in high school, as he quietly envies the nascent band assembled by über-popular guitarist Eugene (Jack Huston). Truth be told, Douglas knows the blues — and music in general — far better than his peers, and is becoming reasonably adept on drums, but nobody cares.

Worse yet, girls have eyes only for Eugene, particularly the lovely but pouty Grace Dietz (Bella Heathcote).

Douglas’ working-class New Jersey home life is no better. His father, Pat (James Gandolfini), smolders like a pot set on perpetual simmer, his temper quick to flare over anything that crosses his conservative, reflexively racist radar. Douglas’ cranky, eternally unhappy mother, Antoinette (Molly Price), worries about money and chafes at how her family’s modest means pale when compared to other relations. She’s more caricature than character.

Younger sister Evelyn (Meg Guzulescu) is an unexpected ray of sunshine: both because Evelyn is spunky enough, and smart enough, to rise above her parents’ often toxic applications of tough love, and because Guzulescu herself is effervescent, her wide eyes and unabashed devotion to her brother winning our hearts.

Douglas gets his shot in Eugene’s band when the regular drummer winds up in the Army. (Pete Best, anyone?) Now in a position to share his artistic respect for a music form — blues-tinged rock — that evolves by the day, Douglas finds a kindred spirit in bandmate Wells (Will Brill), a condescending fellow with an extremely high opinion of himself … and an apparent belief that everybody else should rise to his standards.

Summer passes; Douglas enters college as a short-haired freshman who pleases his father with tentative thoughts about joining the ROTC program. He returns home for Thanksgiving break with long, frizzy hair and the early stages of a bohemian, peacenik attitude that’ll only grow more strident and intolerant with time.

We’re obviously intended to like Douglas, and sympathize with him, but that’s impossible; he is, throughout this entire film, an unpleasant, self-centered jerk.

He then further damages the family dynamic by dropping out of school, choosing instead to focus on the band. Oddly, despite the way Pat has been portrayed up to this point, he doesn’t toss his belligerent, ungrateful lout of a son out of the house; instead, Pat simply … simmers.

Unfortunately, tensions are equally high within the band — now called the Twylight Zones — because Douglas recognizes that he has a far better voice than Eugene, who until now has made himself lead singer. Douglas also knows that they cannot make a name by merely covering existing pop hits, as both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones did, early in their careers; artistic recognition comes only with original material.

But here, too, Eugene prefers the path he knows.

Tempers flare; passions ignite; the band changes its name to TBD. Raw talent and a mildly Dylanesque stage presence turn Douglas into the group’s focus. He gets the girl, when Grace insists that she “believes in him.” Or maybe he doesn’t get her; this couple’s erratic behavior — and particularly Grace’s capricious nature — defy resolution.

Chase lards his script with tragedy. One character gets late-stage cancer: a certain death sentence. Another is confined to a local loony bin. Another smashes into a tree during a motorcycle mishap. Do we care? Not really; each is a fleeting misfortune, unsupported by a cast incapable of bringing emotional depth to these incidents.

One scene stands out: indeed, sparkles like a jewel in a bed of murk. Wanting to have a serious father/son chat, Pat takes Douglas out for a restaurant dinner. Gandolfini owns this moment, as the taciturn Pat opens up, choosing to share a confidence that he never should have revealed, but of course it’s precisely the sort of thing such a man would do. Magaro, as well, sheds most of his character’s aloof hostility.

It’s a brilliant moment, superbly acted and scripted, with both men showing their vulnerable sides and trying to connect. Alas, as happens in real life, they still talk past each other, even as they desperately yearn for connection.

If Chase had assembled the rest of his film with similar care, he’d have a memorable classic. Instead, this tedious vanity endeavor is a dull, dreary slog that flops in the shadow of far better rock ’n’ roll valentines such as “American Graffiti,” “Almost Famous” and “That Thing You Do.”

All of which I now need to watch again, to remove the taste of this misfire.

— Read more of Derrick Bang’s film criticism at http://derrickbang.blogspot.com. Comment on this review at www.davisenterprise.com