On May 1, 2011 social media reported the death of Osama Bin Laden. What followed was a week full of breaking news coverage on Regional, National and International news channels. People were glued to the updates on Facebook and the stories of how CIA operatives cracked the location of 9/11 mastermind. It was a remarkable story.

Now it’s not every year that you get to hear someone like Osama being hunted down. In this generation there was only one Osama and God willing there won’t be any Osama in the coming years. That’s why this movie becomes so important to watch. We may all remember the news articles but the cinematic thrill was missing in it. “Zero Dark Thirty” is that cinematic response to the modern era’s greatest revenge story.

“How do account for the risk of not doing something. Like, letting a person like Osama slip through your fingers?” This is the best dialogue by far. There are other remarkable scenarios where the protagonist puts a fight with her boss for not letting her pursue Bin Laden.

“Maya” is this CIA agent who plays a key role in hunting down OBL (fictional as the real CIA gave clean chit saying it was not a single agent who traced down OBL). She plays a role of this possessed / adamant kid who won’t sleep or play till she has seen the end of the rainbow. And she does find Osama at the end of this rainbow and its not a unicorn story that she had built up. And she’s got a lot of Performance appraisal techniques and pressure techniques to apply on your manager.

Katherine Bigelow comes back with a flair after “Hurt Locker”. She is Hollywood’s in-house expert in dealing with ‘Terrorism’ movies as her ex husband was the Hollywood’s expert in ‘Computer graphics’ movies. Now that’s called good influence and carving a niche for yourself.

Its released late in India, but its better late than never. Too late and the Oscars would get over and there would be no buyers in the Indian circuit for the movie.

–Varun Gowtham Mannava.