CIA's acting director criticises Zero Dark Thirty over torture scenes The film, made by Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow, shows US personnel using techniques like water-boarding to force captives to speak, and suggests the information obtained was crucial in piecing together the trail that eventually led to bin Laden. The CIA chief said: "What I want you to know is that Zero Dark Thirty is a dramatisation, not a realistic portrayal of the facts. The CIA interacted with the filmmakers through our Office of Public Affairs but, as is true with any entertainment project with which we interact, we do not control the final product. The film takes considerable liberties in its depiction of CIA personnel and their actions, including some who died while serving our country. We cannot allow a Hollywood film to cloud our memory of them. Mr Morell is widely believed to be a leading candidate for the job of CIA director after the resignation of David Petraeus, who stepped down in November after admitting to an extramarital affair with his biographer. Mr Morell's message follows a letter to Sony Pictures from three senators, including the 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain, criticising the film. The senators said: "We believe that you have an obligation to state that the role of torture in the hunt for bin Laden is not based on the facts, but rather part of the film's fictional narrative." However, former CIA director Michael Hayden wrote in the Wall Street Journal last year that a "crucial component" of information that eventually led to bin Laden, came from three prisoners "all of whom had been subjected to some form of enhanced interrogation." In a recent statement, released before the official criticism, Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal said: "The film shows that no single method was necessarily responsible for solving the manhunt, nor can any single scene taken in isolation fairly capture the totality of efforts the film dramatises."