Zero Dark Thirty (2012)

Pretty good -- but definitely not great. Way too much rests on the shoulders of the fictional Maya and, frankly, Chastain’s not up to the task of making me believe. My husband made the point on the way home that, fair or not, her character would be compared to Homeland’s Carrie and found wanting. Although that comparison hadn’t even occurred to me in the theater, I think Maya should be considered inferior to Carrie. Her arguments felt somehow small and petulant rather than forceful and inarguable. 

The raid at the compound scene is a tense triumph, but it can’t make up for the movie as a whole.

B