We checked out 'Zero Dark Thirty' yesterday hoping to learn more about the 11-year hunt for Osama bin Laden (OBL). (Read our review here.)
The filmmakers had considerable access to people with knowledge of the manhunt, and their goal was to "be as accurate as we possibly could" without having been there.
Unfortunately, it's hard to say what in the movie is fact and what is made up. Most of it seems accurate, and nothing is clearly false — but some parts presumably involve poetic license.
The most controversial aspect of the film is the idea that waterboarding helped find OBL, which is widely considered to be false.
The following slides portray less obvious details that — true or not — caught our eye.
"Maya" tells the SEALs, "You're going to kill the f***er for me," suggesting there never was a plan to capture OBL.
One of the first lines of the movie is, "He has to learn how helpless he is." That's a reference to the Bush-era torture goal of "learned helplessness," or making captives feel that they are physically and psychologically dependent on their captors.
In the movie, CIA higher-ups harp on "protecting the homeland" from new terrorist attacks — as opposed to bringing bin Laden to justice for old ones. This frames the OBL mission as a part of the larger 'War on Terror.'
According to the movie, the helicopters flying the SEALs in to kill OBL were named "Princess1 and Princess2."
The movie portrays the 2009 suicide bombing in Khost, Afghanistan that killed seven CIA agents as the result of being blinded by their ability to bribe. A meeting with a potential informant turned into the agency's biggest loss of life since a CIA station in Beirut was bombed in 1983.
The movie shows that it was Maya who wanted to call in an airstrike on the safe house, but the Obama administration preferred a boot on the door given that they weren't totally sure it was OBL's position.
The movie shows Langley's "Predator Bay," a really cool control room for the CIA drone program, even though the CIA has yet to acknowledge its drone program.
In the movie, OBL's courier drives a white SUV, which stands out starkly among the normal four door sedans in Pakistan.
Before the raid "Maya" drew on her boss's office window the number of days it had been since they had located OBL's potential position and not acted, highlighting how intense and proactive the agent was about nabbing bin Laden.
The final scene of the movie puts Maya alone in the bay of a C130. The pilot asks her where she wants to go. The question goes unanswered as a tear streaks down her face, portraying "Maya" as lost after the kill after being intensely focused before it.
You got the list of the top ten most interesting details about Zero Dark Thirty ...
NOW CHECK OUT the list of 18 things SEALs never leave base without >
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