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Zero Dark Thirty isn’t just a film about manhunt of
Osama Bin Laden. It is also story of Maya, a determined, gritty CIA operative
whose life has only revolved around finding Bin Laden ever since she was
recruited out of high school by the agency at Langley. It is a story of how
conviction coupled with intelligence and talent help a person achieve most
difficult of the goals.
The movie does not follow course of a typical
Hollywood action movie. It is devoid of any cinematic grandeur and is shot in a
tone and tempo that makes it believable. Portrayal of both Maya and CIA is
neither pure black nor white. It has many shades, as it so often happens in
life.
Maya is an extraordinary talent, reason why she has
been handpicked to be deployed in Pakistan, epic centre of terrorism. She can
be described as HI Pot in HR lingo. Her expertise over behaviors and patterns
of terrorist organizations, and ability of make sense out of it gives her
respect of colleagues and the confidence to call a spade a spade.
How often have you seen a person with such a deep
belief in their idea that they accuse their boss of acting in self interest
when he refuses resources for the idea because he does not share the belief?
How often do you see somebody reminding the boss every day that he is not able
to move organizational machinery fast enough when the project is stuck in
organizational bureaucracy? Such a person like Maya is so engrossed in their
goals and so committed to the idea that they are indifferent to rubbing anybody
on the wrong side. Achievement of extraordinary feat requires such fanatic
dedication to the idea.
CIA like many big organizations is bundled in
hierarchy, slowed by layers of control and supervision. Maya is walked into a
conference room for a group meeting with CIA director. Since she was
instrumental in finding the premise which harbored Bin Laden, she assumed her
position on the centre table. Rather, she is directed to the chairs by the wall
with her seniors eager to do all the talking.
The movie also implores a different angle to risk
assessment. Normally benefits and risk of taking a decision is assessed. The
National Security Advisor to the President was doing exactly the same when he
was fixing percentages to the chances of Bin Laden being present in the safe
house at Abbottabad. This is when George asks him “How do you evaluate risk of
not doing something?”
We so often do not take decision because risk
associated with it may be too high. Such decisions if taken, the consequences
will be real. On the other hand, the consequences of not taking a decision are
notional even when the notional value may be higher than if the decision had
been taken. Similar disposition in behavioral economics refers to people's
tendency to strongly prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains as loss
aversion. Some of the studies have suggested that psychologically losses are
twice as powerful as gains i.e. loss of 100 rupees to a person will cause more dissatisfaction
than a gain of 100 rupees will cause him satisfaction.
Planning however brilliant does not executes
itself. Once it was decided to go ahead for this manhunt, flawless execution of
the plan was necessary. Plan itself was audacious. Navy seal teams were to fly
undetected, deep inside Pakistan territory from Jalalabad base in Afganistan
and carry out the operation within 1 mile (oops 4221 feets) of Pakistantani
Military Academy. Navy seals who were to carry out the mission were trained for
similar kind of missions. Even when one of the helicopters which dropped them
at the operation site crashed, there was a contingency plan in place. They went
on to carry raid with the faith that the helicopter problem will be resolved by
the mission coordinators. Detailed planning and preparation resulted in
flawless execution.
The director, Kathryn Bigelow, has reserved her best
for the end. Maya boards an empty plane after the operation is over.
Vacuousness on her face and tears in her eyes captures the mood of the moment.
She has lost goal and purpose of her life. This is the price Maya pays for her
obsession.
