LOS ANGELES—According to reviews this week of Kathryn Bigelow’s thriller Zero Dark Thirty, which chronicles the 10-year hunt for Osama bin Laden, the film’s climactic scene features a team of U.S. Navy SEALs shrieking in terror as they gradually kill the al-Qaeda leader by throwing a variety of nearby objects at him. “The mood is tense and silent as SEAL Team Six infiltrates the infamous Abbottabad compound, but then all hell breaks loose when bin Laden emerges from behind a door, causing the whole squadron to start yelling wildly as they pelt him with shoes, cups, and flimsy pieces of drywall,” wrote New York Times film critic Manohla Dargis, who mentioned that the hectic five-minute sequence shows bin Laden stumbling around with his head stuck in a sweatshirt thrown by one of the SEALs, bashing into various fixtures and shouting, “Ow, ow!” “Meanwhile, in the helicopter floating above the hideout, two SEALs scream directly into each other’s faces while they desperately try to fly the aircraft away from bin Laden, who is also screaming throughout the entire scene.” The remainder of the film then reportedly focuses on the SEALs tentatively kicking bin Laden’s corpse before retreating several feet and anxiously watching to see if he is still moving.

Advertisement