10 Movies One Mistake Away From Being Masterpieces
7. Zero Dark Thirty
The Almost Great Movie: After Barack Obama, Kathryn Bigelow must have been the happiest person to hear about Osama Bin Laden's death. Now her much anticipated follow-up to The Hurt Locker, then unashamedly titled Kill Bin Laden, had a proper ending. The news meant the film shifted focus from the early days of the CIA's biggest ever manhunt to following Jessica Chastain through the past decade up to that fateful night.
The Big Mistake: You can't tell what's happening in the climax.
Now maybe this was the cinema I was watching Zero Dark Thirty in, but I could hardly see a thing in the final assault on Bin Laden's compound. In the wake of The Hurt Locker, it seems Bigelow's keen to carve out a niche for hyper realistic, war-based violence and for the most part Zero Dark Thirty succeeds. But as its final act kicks in and the commandos head towards their long-awaited goal, it seems the rent on the lights ran out and we're plunged into darkness. It's clear what the intention was, but here it doesn't work too well, having us straining to see what was happening rather than being invested in the well shot action.