Actually in your haste to hate the film because you obviously hate the actions of the Americans you've missed what I feel is a key point that the film makes. Firstly it doesn't make the case that torture lead to the death of Osama it says that torture was involved in every single interegation between the years 2001 and 2008 so it's enevetable that some of this information attained under torture lead to his death.
Actually not the case. The film shows the guy co-operating when he is treated nicely after torture.
This question has been asked a number of times and the people involved have said torture in no way led to the information about the courier.
For the Directory/Producer to present it as otherwise a still try to present it as a work of reportage is dead wrong.
Secondly the one prolonged scene of torture ends with a man spouting gibberish which can't be used to stop a terrorsist attack. Which is key because it essentially says that the torture didn't work. They do get information but it's essentially by using the old cop trick "we know more than you do" and the "actionable intel" is garnered over a meal after he's been outsmarted. Not during torture. This is a small difference but an important one. The logic employed by ZDT is that if all detainees were tortured and some gave information that lead to UBLs death then that can't be left out of the film. This is very simple logic to be fair. Like on IQ tests where the question is "if all snorks are dorks and all dorks are quarks is it safe to assume that all snorks are quarks?".
That's on way of looking at it - I don't agree.
He was locked in a box and broken - not outsmarted.
If I knocked you out with a hammer and when you woke up 30 minutes later told you you've been in a coma for a year - I'd have outsmarted you?
Secondly in the second half of the film when there has been a change in command from Bush to Obama the main characters say quite a few times that any and all information garnered under torture is worthless, because it's out of date and Because it was never particularly useful information anyway. when Mya says near the end that the only way she could get information from a source in time for it to be usable is by torture she also says that even then by torturing him she couldn't be sure that any informations she got would be at all usable anyway.
They did everything but add a "Thanks Obama!" meme to the scene where they are listening to the announcement.
And having an intelligence officer suggest she has been deprived of the tools to extract information...that's not reporting or reality - it's torture.
and finally
Propaganda is according to wikipedia anyway So I'm not seeing how a film which
Depicts it's nation as controvening it's own human rights charter and then goes on to question the worth of that contraveing can be considered propaganda ? Like her or not Bigelowes statement if there is one is "this is what happened" now you can hate her all you like for not saying this is what happened and you should feel bad about it. But to her credit she doesn't take a pro or anti stand on what happened, there are no strings playing and long close ups in slow motion shots of Chastain feeling bad about what they're are carrying out so that we the audience can say "ooh they're so morally wrong what a tragedy" there isn't even a clear moral message at all. It just says here's what happened feel how you like about it. If you feel angry about it then fine but your placing your opinions and your politics into a film which really doesn't have any of it's own.
Lastly if the film was propaganda then the torturers would be proud and happy torture for uncle sam no ? The fact that they aren't pretty much shits on your whole point no ?
There is a film to be made about torture. About the CIA flailing around in the dark after 911, not knowing what do do, and in that chaos torturing people. About youngsters copying things they saw on TV (seriously) in Iraq and Afghanistan. About innocent people tortured and brutalised. About why this happened etc.
There is also a film to be made about the capture of OBL.
However....you can't do both at the same time. You can't present these as part of the same story without presenting a mistruth.