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So my wife and I went and saw Zero Dark Thirty today and I have some thoughts.
Let me start out by saying, damn- what a powerful, and well made movie! Like anything based in reality it's difficult to know where truth and fiction intersect. That being said this film left me asking myself a number of questions.
First- I have no sympathy for terrorists, however after watching the brutal treatment and torture of terrorists in the film- I couldn't help but feel bad for them a little, even though they were likely evil people bent on killing as many Americans as possible, and deserved to suffer for the Sept 11 attacks. I just mean for years the CIA used torture to try and find Bin Laden, and basically got nowhere. New president shuts down the torture program, they use police work instead, and then find and kill Bin Laden. Like I said earlier- it's hard to say how much is real and what is fiction but its begs the question does the end justify the means when it comes to something like torture? Don't we as Americans have to hold ourselves to a higher standard than the savages we ate fighting against?
Anyway I thought it was a great film- I don't remember the last time I saw a movie that made me really think about stuff afterwards and I know if anyone besides Katherine Bigelow had made it, it likely would have been so Hollywooded up as to miss the point of the film entirely and be sheer entertainment, and likely pretty awful. What did you guys think?
Let me start out by saying, damn- what a powerful, and well made movie! Like anything based in reality it's difficult to know where truth and fiction intersect. That being said this film left me asking myself a number of questions.
First- I have no sympathy for terrorists, however after watching the brutal treatment and torture of terrorists in the film- I couldn't help but feel bad for them a little, even though they were likely evil people bent on killing as many Americans as possible, and deserved to suffer for the Sept 11 attacks. I just mean for years the CIA used torture to try and find Bin Laden, and basically got nowhere. New president shuts down the torture program, they use police work instead, and then find and kill Bin Laden. Like I said earlier- it's hard to say how much is real and what is fiction but its begs the question does the end justify the means when it comes to something like torture? Don't we as Americans have to hold ourselves to a higher standard than the savages we ate fighting against?
Anyway I thought it was a great film- I don't remember the last time I saw a movie that made me really think about stuff afterwards and I know if anyone besides Katherine Bigelow had made it, it likely would have been so Hollywooded up as to miss the point of the film entirely and be sheer entertainment, and likely pretty awful. What did you guys think?