Zero Dark Thirty Is Borderline Fascistic ... and a Masterpiece

New York Magazine ^ | 12/10/2012 | David Edelstein

[mojito]

Kathryn Bigelow’s kill–bin Laden epic Zero Dark Thirty is the most neutral-seeming “America, F**k Yeah!” picture ever made. In its narrative arc, it is barely distinct from a boneheaded right-wing revenge picture, but the vibe is cool, brisk, grown-up, packed with impressively real-sounding intel jargon. And the hero is no gun-toting macho man. She’s a CIA agent named Maya (Jessica Chastain), a woman in a world in which men call the shots, metaphorically and literally. Presented with the movie’s liberal-pleasing feminist overlay, you root for her to compel the men to do what men would do naturally if they weren’t so constrained by modern technological and bureaucratic and constitutional hurdles: find the motherf**kerr and blow his f**king head off. As a moral statement, Zero Dark Thirty is borderline fascistic. As a piece of cinema, it’s phenomenally gripping — an unholy masterwork.

[denydenydeny]

As a piece of cinema, it’s phenomenally gripping — an unholy masterwork.

Contrast with the author's review of V for Vendetta, which features heroes blowing up and murdering villains who are simulacra of the Bush administration. The review is full of words like "gladdening" and "riotously enjoyable ".

[piasa]

Does the flick include the part where the Obama admin leaves the Pakistani doctor who helped in the locating of OBL to rot in a Pakistani jail?