Maya is a CIA operative whose first experience is in the interrogation of prisoners following the Al Qaeda attacks against the U.S. on the 11th September 2001. She is a reluctant participant in extreme duress applied to the detainees, but believes that the truth may only be obtained through such tactics. For several years, she is single-minded in her pursuit of leads to uncover the whereabouts of Al Qaeda's leader, Osama Bin Laden. Finally, in 2011, it appears that her work will pay off, and a U.S. Navy SEAL team is sent to kill or capture Bin Laden. But only Maya is confident Bin Laden is where she says he is..............
There's been mixed reviews for this movie and I must admit I wasn't keen but a chance opened up to see it as a double bill with another movie I thought would be better, apart from the length of the movie this is quite entertaining and tense as you know the result of the hunt, Maya (Jessica Chastain, I only knew her from Lawless and I liked her performance in this movie even if it's a little over the top!).
The movie jumps throughout in great leaps according to breakthroughs and events that shape the story (there's even the attacks in London featured), torture is very evident at the start, bribery, betrayal, guessing, assumptions and a new administrations but Maya is the link and her transformation from inexperienced officer to vengeful and experienced officer is one to behold, there's not a lot of action until the raid on the compound at the end (very well done) and between the indecision and meetings to guess what were the percentages that he was at this compound (60%), it surprises me the mission ever got the go ahead.
All in all I believe it's worth a watch, it's better than The Hurt Locker in my opinion from this director, does it deserve an oscar?, depends on how factual or truthful this movie was, there's several cameos during the movie (James Gandolfini, Mark Strong, John Barrowman.......) but it's the ending and the mistake that led to the compound, SEAL Team 6 are referred to as Canaries because Maya had a whole different plan to deal with the compound (involved a really large bomb!)
Maya's passion rather than performance is the key to this movie if that makes sense?