To Catch Bin Laden

Over the winter break, I went to see the movie "Zero Dark Thirty." The movie was said to be a portrayal of the events leading up to the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden. It mainly followed the work of a young women in the CIA who spends 8 years in Pakistan trying to find bin Laden. Personally, I thought the movie was really entertaining and fast paced, and the overall acting was pretty quality. However, I watched the movie knowing that the events in the movie were not exactly the same as how they happened in real life or the characters who were portraying real people. What really struck me about the movie, was that the opening scene was an almost black screen with the words along the lines of these events actually happened.

In class we have been talking a lot about the difference between "fiction" and "non-fiction" and how some movies, books, etc. bend the lines in what is true and what is not. I believe "Zero Dark Thirty" does this as well. The majority of the events actually happened from the bombing of a Marriott hotel to the raid on Osama Bin Ladens house. However, how the events actually played out were different from the movie. This could be because a movies main job is to provide entertainment and sometimes things need to be made more exciting then how they actually happened. I thought this movie was really well directed but some others disagree. What do you think? Do you think the movie was an accurate portrayl of the events?