“Dude, do you realize what you just did?” While Chris Pratt’s character says this to his fellow Seal 6 team member after he shot Osama bin Laden, the statement also accurately reflects the feelings one wants to share with the cast and crew after viewing the film.

“Zero Dark Thirty” is a sweeping dramatic epic, traveling through one of the most controversial and important decades of American history.

The story follows Maya, a CIA operative whose lone quest is to catch America’s most wanted international criminal, Osama bin Laden. But to possible viewers, this seemingly simple plot is actually complex, deep and riveting.

Director Kathryn Bigelow follows up her 2008 award winning masterpiece “The Hurt Locker” with a movie more visually stunning and gut wrenching. She doesn’t pull any punches.

Instead she decides to deliver numerous crucial blows that hit the audience with a massive knockout capability. The torture scenes are not edited for easy viewing, and the superb acting of Jason Clarke in the opening distressing scene sets the tone for the entire movie.

Jessica Chastain plays Maya in the film, and her performance has already won her a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination.

She portrays a woman trained to be unemotional, but viewers see the constant cool character evolve from a shy CIA rookie “killer” to a cunning, driven and unstoppable force of nature. “Zero Dark Thirty” is filled with tremendous acting, but no such performance matches the majesty of Chastain’s.

What makes Maya stand out, along with numerous other minor characters, is the script written by Mark Boal. This is the second time the screenwriter teamed up with Bigelow, and it is clear that the two have an immense amount of chemistry. Boal, a journalist by trade, brings his objective and straight-to-the-point writing style into “Zero Dark Thirty.”

The script is crisp when it needs to be, and epically deliberate at other times. For example, when one of Maya’s friends passes away, Boal abandons the predominantly quick paced multi-layered dialogue, having Maya deliver one, quick powerful line: “I’m gonna smoke everybody involved in this op, and then I’m gonna kill bin Laden.”

Everyone knows that this statement foreshadows what is to come, but who cares? “Zero Dark Thirty” is a movie where the audience knows the ending, but seeing the journey makes the gut-wrenching finale even more heroic. The final scenes of Seal Team 6 ambushing Bin Laden’s hideaway are perfectly cut and edited together, making for an entertaining and incredibly satisfying conclusion.

The national community celebrated the death of Osama Bin Laden, and Americans knew that eventually a film would be made to culminate the events. Yet, one could never expect such a masterfully created piece of cinema. “Zero Dark Thirty” is an absolute must see.