ZERO DARK THIRTY Review By: MattInRC The mammoth ZERO DARK THIRTY is a brilliant production, but be prepared - it ain't pretty. SPOILERS! As someone caught in the middle of the insanity of 9/11 (my wife and I were on vacation in Virginia at the time), I admit to having felt a spike of joy when President Obama announced the killing of Usama bin Laden in 2011. To me, the death UBL was the end of a dark chapter, but certainly not the end of the bigger book on worldwide terrorism. So much has changed since 9/11, as if any remaining shred of our innocence was lost. But while films like ZERO DARK THIRTY attempt to provide a kind of therapy for our tortured souls, we're still left wondering whether our country can ever return to normal. Thirty doesn't stray into that territory, settling instead on the pressure placed on human beings as they undertook the hunt for the most wanted man in America. The result is an engrossing effort that's at once hard to