Kathryn Bigelow's follow-up to her award-winning drama The Hurt Locker once again uses the War on Terror to examine her country's psyche, this time centring on Maya (Jessica Chastain), a C.I.A. analyst who becomes increasingly fixated on leading the service's hunt for Osama Bin Laden. Less a bombastic military drama than a swift-paced procedural a la Michael Mann, Bigelow once again has produced a thrilling, penetrating study of the nature of contemporary American obsession.