The film, whose title means thirty minutes past midnight, is masterfully directed by a filmmaker who refuses to take any political stance, but nevertheless offers her viewers endless material to debate. I’m going with four out of five for Kathryn Bigelow’s Zero Dark Thirty. This is no jingoistic flag-waving revenge saga, but a thought-provoking and realistic account of the dark side of the war on terror. Don’t miss it!

As an action movie it completely rocks. Just not as what it pretends to be. It’s a wailing guitar-riff of a movie, with an incessantly climactic drummer. Shake your head to it good, but don’t try and listen to the words.

Zero Dark Thirty is deeply disturbing. There are scenes here that you can’t watch and yet you can’t look away. This film is gripping and visceral, in ways that can’t be explained but should be experienced.

The film could’ve been much shorter. Clocking in at close to three hours, the film’s premise is based on a series of events that spanned close to a decade, but the suspense is built, almost in real time, on slow-burn. It gives you the feeling of being there ‘as it happens’. That’s not always something your audience wants.

Zero Dark Thirty is a well-made film in terms of production values. But apart from portraying the single-minded zeal of a CIA woman for the head of the perpetrator of one of the most horrific terror attacks in US history, the script offers little by way of subtext or commentary.