Saw it last night and I didn't care too much for it, but my buddy who saw it with me loved it. The Good: Its a pretty unvarnished look at what happened with the CIA investigation that led to the killing of Osama. There's torture scenes, scenes where its clear some people involved are more concerned about moving up the ladder than getting Bin Ladin. CIA operations are shown going bad. The Seal Team guys are shown acting professionally on the raid. The Bad: The torture scenes seem to happen in real time, with you hanging and being subjected to waterboarding. There are lots of shots of the people involved looking somber. Long, lingering shots. There's a sequence about the London bus bombing which goes on too long. (I say this because that's really about the only mention of the bus bombings in the movie, and the folks looking for Bin Ladin don't really have any connection to the events.) Slightly Disappointing: When they figure out where Bin Ladin is hiding, nobody says, "You know, maybe we should look for other big compounds like this, since its obvious that the only reason you'd want to build one of these is to protect someone we're interested in." (Even if the folks in the CIA didn't say that, it should be mentioned to point out the fact that its something that needs to be done.) You see very little of the world outside the efforts to get Bin Ladin, so nothing about the debates which went on in the administration about getting Bin Ladin, or the operation itself. Nothing about the planning of the operation, either. The Seals show up in a hanger, are shown the stealth choppers, and a model of Bin Ladin's compound, told they're going after the big guy, then they're hanging out in Afghanistan waiting to go on the raid. Nobody quotes from Team America: World Police during the raid. I would have liked to have heard one of the Seal guys shout, "Surprise, cockfags!" or something during the raid. Again, not a wretchedly bad film, but one which I think could have benefited from a little trimming here and there of a few moments from some of the sequences.
I've heard that one of the problems with the movie is that some people came expecting almost a documentary of "How We Killed Bin Laden". Instead it is a fictionalized summation of the events that took place over the course of ten years that has to be shoe horned into two hours.
I'm not going to pay to see this, as everything I've heard about it would indicate that it's a piece of vulgar propaganda. Torrent it is...
I wouldn't call it "propaganda," by any means. Were it to be so, there wouldn't have been any showing of the CIA station chief in Pakistan being a tool. In fact, many of the CIA brass come off as tools, just cooling their heels in a particular job until they can get promoted to a position they prefer.
My impression from the trailers and your description is that this is more of a pro-military propaganda piece, rather than a pro-USA/pro-intelligence piece. Even so, it's definitely a blatant attempt at cashing in on the whole event.
WTF? The military barely figures into this film at all. They get maybe 30-40 minutes of screen time, with the rest of the 2+ hours of the film focusing on the efforts of a couple of CIA operatives to get Bin Laden. If by "cashing in" you mean "make money," there's barely a movie in Hollywood that isn't made with that motive. The torture scenes are not sugar-coated, by any stretch of the imagination, nor are the people doing the torture seen as exactly "nice people." Indeed, one of them admits it "fucked me up," and he has to quit being a field operation because of it.
So it's better than SEAL TEAM SIX? I watched that one while coughing up my own lungs last week and me laughing all the way through didn't help.
Well, considering how Hollywood is busy lavishing vomit worthy adulation on Ben Affleck for Argo, this wouldn't surprise me one bit.
On the plus side for me: Same director as The Hurt Locker. On the not-quite-sure side, from what I've read without having yet seen it:
^That does put a different spin on it. The outcry among many critics and human rights groups surprised me, given who was directing it. Couldn't imagine she'd have turned apologist. Your explanation makes a lot more sense. I do want to see this, if for no other reason than the Burkha Scene. Back when OBL was let slip from Tora Bora, I kept thinking Why doesn't the CIA or Special Forces just dress up in burkhas as a way of getting close to al Qaeda? You can hide a helluva lot of ordnance under one of those, and since it's forbidden to touch a woman who isn't your wife, it would be a perfect way to infiltrate. That it was actually done IRL is...interesting.
I think if you look at some of the preconceived notions in this thread and the negative emotional reactions they cause, it's not hard to image how certain critics are going to interpret the movie as negatively as possible.
Few things annoy me more than "I haven't seen it, but I know it sucks," whether it's a private individual saying it, or a critic who gets paid to review these things, or the late and unlamented Catholic Legion of Decency.
So, I watched it. It's outrageous. I'm not sure if it's the most objectionable film I've ever seen (Hello The Passion) but it's up there. The support for torture is pretty explicit, juxtaposing 9/11 with torture scenes to justify the latter, showing that it does work in several instances, portraying politicians who object as meddling opportunists, and rewriting history in several places (such as with some of the attacks) to provide a stronger narrative to the idea that there's a symetrical "war" going on. Even the WMD lie gets a defense at one point. Bigelow is on record as expressing her admiration for these people, and received access to classified info for the purposes of making a pro-military movie, so anyone claiming that it's an unbiased work presenting the viewer with opportunity to make their own mind up is crazy.
Torture does work, unfortunately. Or wait, scrap that. Actual torture really doesn't. Being told that there will be some works. Also, an especially effective method is showing the tooks to the delinquent. The middle ages called it 'Territion' (I think it's the English word too). It was part of many justice systems from the mid 16th until the late 18th century, but probably still works today since people haven't become robots. Of course I haven't seen the movie yet
Well, I remember something from a former CIA agent saying to the effect that if you want information from someone don't shoot them. Just shoot the people to their left and right.
Torture does work. Everybody breaks sooner or later. And the "enhanced interrogations" we do today are mild compared to what's been done in other times and in other places.
Except for that guy that got sent to Egypt, and lied, and gave ol' douchebag his "slam dunk", and caused Iraq. Other than that....
No. It doesn't. People under extreme duress will say anything to make it stop, including what they think their torturer wants to hear. Torture is notoriously unreliable. Now if you want the truth, get your subject drunk and sleep-deprived. Turns the filters off and destroys their judgement.
Still doesn't make it right. If 'we' do it, how can we ever claim moral superiority. It's the single biggest mistake of the Bush years: trying to fight terrorism with the same means while loudly proclaiming how that's better than what the other side does. What's next, cutting off suspects heads with kitchen knives and putting the video on youtube? Torture is a doubleplusfucking NO if we want to remain civilized. We should be far above it. However, a little teasing always goes a long way.
