Killing Osama bin Laden has often been touted in the United States as one of the major achievements of US President Barack Obama's first term. But just as he gets ready for a grandiose second-term inauguration on Monday, the Hollywood movie Zero Dark Thirty is set to cast a shadow on this.

The movie, which began playing in cinemas nationwide on Friday, tells of the prolonged manhunt that led to the killing of Bin Laden on May 2 in 2011. It features various torture scenes of terror suspects by CIA operatives, using methods such as waterboarding, humiliation and sleep deprivation.

The 157-minute movie has since drawn fire despite its box office success last weekend, which saw it rake in nearly $25 million. Some senators, such as Democrat Diane Feinstein and Republican John McCain, have called the movie "grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the location of" Bin Laden.