Zero Dark Thirty (Bigelow, 2012)
Last night I watched the new Kathryn Bigelow film, A House of Dynamite, at an actual cinema, a few days before it starts streaming on Netflix.
If you want an early response — before I give it a proper review next week — be sure to listen to RNZ Nights tonight at about 8.30pm1.
An earlier political thriller from Bigelow, Zero Dark Thirty, is currently available online at two of Aotearoa’s free streamers so I thought I would dig out my February 2013 review of that from the old site:
At the 2010 Oscars, Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker was a surprise winner – at least it was a surprise to New Zealand distributors who weren’t planning to release it at all. The follow-up, Zero Dark Thirty, also has a Middle East focus – the decade long hunt for Osama Bin Laden by a CIA prepared to use any means necessary to extract information from detainees. One wonders what Lincoln might have thought (although he suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War so his principles were malleable).
Bigelow’s lengthy film is at its best when people aren’t speaking. Mark Boal’s exposition-heavy script is clunky but the action set pieces are first rate. I wasn’t sure that The Hurt Locker was all that much of a triumph as bomb disposal lends itself pretty easily to cinematic tension but ZDT proves that Bigelow is the real deal.
It was just a capsule review because it came out in the same week as Spielberg’s Lincoln2, Tarantino’s Django Unchained, Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook, Wright’s Anna Karenina, Bayona’s The Impossible and Krieger’s Celeste &Jesse Forever.
Where to watch Zero Dark Thirty
Aotearoa: Streaming on Māori+ or TVNZ+ (both free with ads)
Australia: Streaming on Stan
Canada: Digital rental
India: Not currently available
USA: Streaming on Paramount+ or Fubo
UK: Streaming on Prime Video
This week marks the third anniversary of my first appearance as a reviewer on Nights and I haven’t missed a segment since then.
Of course, Lincoln is worth talking about as Daniel Day-Lewis has just come out of retirement for his son Ronan’s first film, Anemone.
