[Reocourgigiot]

Aug 6 2012 12:00 PM ET | by Anthony Breznican | Insidemovies

Zero Dark Thirty is an upcoming 2012 American action thriller film about the special operations
forces mission to capture or kill Osama bin Laden.

It's already the year's most controversial movie, though almost no one knows anything about it.

It is a chronicle of the decade-long hunt for al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks,
and his death at the hands of the Navy SEAL Team 6 in May, 2011.

The film is directed and co-produced by Kathryn Bigelow with screenplay by Mark Boal, both associated with
The Hurt Locker, another military action thriller that won the Academy Award for Best Picture and five other
Oscars in 2009.

It will star Jessica Chastain, Joel Edgerton, Edgar Ramirez, and Mark Strong



Zero Dark Thirty will be an unusual film in that the climax of the story is already widely known and it's the
set-up that remains mysterious. Bin Laden was killed on May 2, 2011 by the U.S. Navy's elite SEAL Team Six,
but what remains largely unknown is the true backstory behind the raid, and how intelligence agencies and
the military connected the dots that eventually brought them to that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The trailer is highly stylized, emphasizing the secrecy of the story with its use of the kind of bars used to black
out information on redacted classified documents. In an email interview, Bigelow explains the significance of
the title: "It's a military term for 30 minutes after midnight, and it refers also to the darkness and secrecy
that cloaked the entire decade long mission."

This has been the primary source of controversy: Opponents of President Barack Obama have been eager for
the public to avoid any reminders this election year that the Commander-in-Chief gave that order authorizing
the raid that finally took down the terrorist mastermind.

The makers of Zero Dark Thirty insist their film is a study of the unsung heroes who worked tirelessly behind the
scenes to take down bin Laden, not a celebration of Obama's decision. When they made the Iraq War drama The
Hurt Locker in 2008, which won them Oscars for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Picture, Bigelow
and Boal were praised (and sometimes slammed) for leaving politics out of the film. They say they're doing the
same thing this time.

"There's no political agenda in the film. Full stop. Period," says Boal, a veteran journalist and war correspondent.
"A lot of people are going to be surprised when they see the film. For example, the president is not depicted in the
movie. He's just not in the movie."