Zero Dark Thirty...a review...

OK, so I stayed up late and watched Zero Dark Thirty (because I'm cheap and didn't want to keep the Redbox for more than one day)...**SPOILERS**

I am STILL processing this film.  I haven't changed my mind on torture, including waterboarding.  It's unequivocally wrong and should *not* be used by a democratic nation. Period. Plus, used on men engaged in a jihad??  Just gives them a bigger feeling of going out a martyr, tortured and crucified for their "cause"...those types are even less likely to crack under such treatment...they crave it as they feel it gains them higher glory in the afterlife.....it seems as if the most basic CIA interrogator would know that, not to mention one with a PhD in the stuff.  

But on a base, visual level, the scenes made my stomach lurch and I almost lost my dinner; it was a very, very dark portion of the film and I was terrifically glad they didn't linger on it and that it was over soon.  Perhaps they thought the overlay of 9/11 audio of victims during the beginning would make us feel some sort of righteousness over treating alleged 9/11 co-conspirators this way, but it didn't work.  Big fat fail. And I felt it was reaching, just a bit, into the no-no land of exploiting those victims to garner support for a knowingly bad agenda.

The rest of the movie, I kept trying to get "into it"...I wanted to feel that blind American patriotism when the end came and I could cheer, "We got 'em!"  But I kind of held my hand over my mouth the *entire* time, trying not to vomit or cry out.

My immediate gut feeling when the credits began to roll was that I had just watched the most clever piece of propaganda ever produced by Americans.  I still get that feeling the next morning. There are oodles of questions that still don't have answers...

Where is his body?
Where is unequivocal proof that the man supposedly killed was Bin Laden?
Why was half the participating SEAL team killed just a few months after the mission?
How was this so quickly declassified as to allow the publishing of a book and the making of a movie?  Al Queda is still a live, practicing entity...shouldn't all of this be classified?
How did this vindicate the deaths of Americans citizens killed on 9/11, and why did none of us feel that glorious feeling of "winning" when word of his death came out?
Why wasn't he given a trial?  Just like the Nurembourg trials, shouldn't even the worst global offenders be given the right to a trial for their crimes against humanity?

None of these questions were answered for me by this movie; rather, many, many more deeply disturbing questions were raised, namely, why on earth was this movie ever allowed to be made?

Another point that was kind of floating in the back of my head the whole time was that this movie & its actual true story could be held as some kind of feminist achievement...a woman brought down the leader of a global terrorist group (and one who hid behind the religion of Islam...ohhh, the irony). While technically correct, it didn't do that for me. It made me wonder where this woman is today. What's she doing? What's your next career move after catching and killing Bin Laden?  Why was so so intent on killing him instead of capturing him and giving a trial? Don't get me wrong- she fought an overwhelmingly male organization, clawed her way to get some respect and a foothold in a man's world, but at what cost? To use and grow accustomed to torture? To see your friends killed? To have nearly no solid evidence of your achievement, only the eyewitness accounts of those there? 

I had planned to watch this movie with my boyfriend.  I'm glad I didn't.  It's most certainly NOT a date movie.  It's most certainly NOT a movie for children, even older ones. I wouldn't allow a kid under 16 to watch this film, and I am extraordinarily liberal about what my kids view. The topics it addresses, sometimes very visually, are absolutely, positively inappropriate for children.

I'm glad no one made a movie like this after World War II. Vietnam survivors made Full Metal Jacket and Platoon to f*& with our heads about that war, and I'm afraid Zero Dark Thirty is going to join those ranks with this war.

Do I recommend?  As long as you view this with the full knowledge of what you're about to see, if you already have pretty firm opinions on torture, detainee treatment, the Iraq War, 9/11, and Bin Laden, and if you have a pretty strong stomach (there's not a lot of gore- there's a lot of psychological brain-play). Otherwise, pass it up and watch a film more geared for entertainment, not propaganda.