Whatever Kathryn Bigelow's intention with Zero Dark Thirty, her new blockbuster about the hunt for Osama bin Laden, one fact is inescapable: this is a pro-torture film.

It doesn't matter that the torture scenes are confrontingly graphic. It doesn't matter that Maya, the CIA agent at the centre of the story, is clearly disturbed as she watches a detainee being beaten and waterboarded. Such ''nuance'' and ''complexity'' (so often cited in the film's defence) only make things worse.

''Depiction is not endorsement'' protests Bigelow, and that's true enough. I have no problem with the mere depiction of torture. But there is a problem with this depiction. The bottom line is that, as this film has it, the chain of intelligence that leads to bin Laden's death begins with information elicited from tortured detainees. Sure, it's not pretty, but it's effective. And however squeamish the audience might be about it, that's what matters.

It doesn't take long for Maya's discomfort to dissipate, and soon she is ordering that people of interest be tortured. This is our heroine, the character we cheer on as she gets ever closer to exacting vengeance on the man who killed 3000 people in the 9/11 attacks. Ends justify means, here, and none of Maya's heroics is achievable without her embracing torture. It's as though she just needed a chance to mature; to prove she's not ''too young for the hard stuff'', that ''she's a killer''.