Green Zone Review [2]

Posted by Trevor Snyder on 03.14.2010

Wait a sec, are you telling me there weren't any WMD in Iraq? You're blowing my mind, man.

GREEN ZONE (2010)



Directed by: Paul Greengrass
Written by: Brian Helgeland
Inspired by the book Imperial Life in the Emerald City by: Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Starring: Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Brendan Gleeson, Amy Ryan, Khalid Abdalla, & Jason Isaacs
Rated R for violence and language.


It seems like a lot of people want to make jokes about Green Zone, the new Matt Damon/Paul Greengrass collaboration, being nothing more than the fourth Bourne movie. I don’t really get this – Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have made one more movie together than these two, and yet I didn’t hear anyone referring to Shutter Island as “Departed in an insane asylum.”

OK, sure, there is something of a similarity in the basic idea, regarding an American soldier betrayed by his superiors…but that’s really about it. Upon viewing it, it becomes clear that Green Zone is not a Bourne movie. So then what the hell is it? Well, that’s actually somewhat complicated, as it’s really two different movies – one is a pretty well done action film, and the other a confused and almost condescending political potboiler. I liked one of ‘em, I’ll give it that.



Damon stars as Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, head of an Army squad charged with finding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction during the U.S.-led occupation of Baghdad in 2003. Miller is beginning to get frustrated, as his team is sent from one dangerous and potentially booby-trapped site to the next, all of which turn up empty despite supposedly vetted intel guaranteeing that these areas contain chemical weapons. Miller begins to question the reliability of this intel, only to be constantly shut down by his superiors, who ensure them their source is solid.

This unknown source is codenamed “Magellan,” and whoever it is, they are only in contact with Pentagon Special Intelligence operative Clark Poundstone (played in high weasel fashion by Greg Kinnear). Poundstone has a lot on his plate – besides his supposed meetings with Magellan, he is also hard at work trying to instate formerly-displaced Iraqi politician Ahmed Zubadi in charge of the new Iraqi government – despite the protests of the CIA’s Baghdad bureau chief Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson, trying but not quite succeeding to shake his native Irish accent for the role), who feels that Zubadi’s long absence from the country will make it impossible for him to take control of such a volatile country consisting of three warring factions. Poundstone ignores Brown’s concerns and moves forward with his plans, while at the same time trying to duck Wall Street Journal reporter Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan) and her constant appeals to meet Magellan herself.



At the same time, Iraqi army General Al-Rawi (Yigal Naor) is conducting secret meetings throughout Baghdad, ensuring his aides that instead of fighting American forces, they should wait for the American government to offer them a deal that he is quite confident will be made soon. A concerned Iraqi citizen named “Freddy” (Khalid Abdalla) sees one of these meetings taking place, and informs the nearby Miller and his men. Miller’s group stages an assault on the meeting, but Al-Rawi is able to escape. Miller convinces the scared Iraqi whose home was the meeting place to give him information on where to find Al-Rawi, but before he can do so a Delta Force squad under orders from Poundstone shows up and spirits the man away. Sensing something is amiss, Miller teams with Brown, and together the two try to uncover both why Poundstone seemingly doesn’t want Al-Rawi captured, and the truth behind Magellan.

Loosely based on Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s book Imperial Life in the Emerald City (so loosely, in fact, you wonder why they bothered crediting the book at all), Green Zone is an action film with a message. It’s not anti-war, per se, but it certainly has issues with the reasoning behind the Iraq War, and it uses its action film trappings to frame a fairly blunt condemnation of the American government’s lies and misinformation regarding the presence of WMD in Iraq in the ramp-up to the conflict. Although this is clearly the film’s main purpose for existing, it is also its biggest detriment. For one thing, it is coming out in the shadow of the far superior and more-or-less apolitical The Hurt Locker – following the brilliance of Bigelow’s work, this film’s obvious “good and bad, right and wrong” politicizing might feel to some as an unwelcome return to the more message-heavy Iraq movies that never really captured America’s interest in the first place. And even if you agree with the movie’s message (and I don’t think you need to be exclusively a liberal or conservative to do so), there’s no helping the fact that Green Zone feels a little late to the party. Miller’s discovery that he has been chasing phantom WMD in order to justify the invasion is depicted as a sort of wake-up call to the American people – but it’s a wake-up call we all already received years ago. I’m not suggesting that the lies and stretched truths that were uncovered in the wake of the invasion aren’t important, and I would agree they should never be forgotten, but there’s no denying that this movie lacks the immediacy it would have benefited from if it had come out, say, three or four years ago.

But there’s actually something else about the film’s political subtext that is bothersome, and that’s how ridiculously oversimplified it all is. Chandrasekaran’s book – and the real life events it covers – is an amazingly complex work to distill down into any two-hour movie, let alone one that also wants to leave time for more traditional action sequences. And so Greengrass and writer Brian Helgeland’s message is weakened by how transparently obvious they have made it. Granted, the film never explicitly refers to itself as a 100% true story, but it conveys a level of anger at the situation that is clearly real and meant to be taken seriously. Which is all well and good, except that the movie suggests the lies about WMD were apparently the work of one misguided bastard (Kinnear), and that the truth was eventually uncovered and unleashed upon the world by one noble soldier (Damon). The movie is so desperate for a clear-cut (and clichéd) good guy and bad guy that it frustratingly turns a blind eye to the obvious and all-too-real complexities that made up the real story and events. This works to the benefit of the movie’s action-film leanings…but it makes it pretty tough to take its more high-minded ideals very seriously.

The good news, then, is that it does work as an exciting action thriller, as you would expect from Greengrass. If you can put aside the film’s pesky generalization of the issues, you’ll be rewarded with a legitimately exciting, if somewhat predictable, narrative. Over the course of his two Bourne films, Greengrass has honed his style of jittery action to something of a science, and he employs that same shaky-jam and jarring editing to great effect here. Thankfully, I think he has also learned when to go a little easy on the shaky-cam, as I wasn’t nearly as distracted by it this time as I was in The Bourne Ultimatum, where often scenes of just two people talking felt like they were being filmed during a 5.0 earthquake (then again, I have seen other Green Zone reviews state that the shaky-cam is even worse in this movie, so maybe I’ve just grown used to it in the wake of the Bourne series and other offenders like Cloverfield or District 9). Like I said, the good guy/bad guy mentality hurts the film’s political capital, but it does lend the story an easy to follow and oddly comfortable structure, and in the film’s chase-heavy final act we are allowed to get behind Damon’s Miller as we would any typical action hero. This might strike some as lazy – particularly those who would have liked to have seen a more involved examination of Chandrasekaran’s book. And I can see that argument. But, you know what…I’m also a sucker for a well-done action movie, and this film’s various battle and assault scenes are as exciting as any action sequences I have seen in the cinema lately.

The film is also helped by a number of great performances. Damon is perfectly cast as Miller, as one of his greatest strengths as an actor is projecting an easy likeability and sense of decency. That sort of nobility makes him a perfect stand-in for all Americans who were forced to confront some unsettling information about their own government in the wake of the Iraq invasion, while his natural star-power also helps anchor the film’s more action-driven side. Damon’s former Siamese twin Greg Kinnear, meanwhile, is also right at home here, as the smarmy Poundstone is the kind of role that that Kinnear just seems to excel at (that’s not a knock against Kinnear…I’m just sayin’). Brendan Gleeson and Amy Ryan are also their usual excellent selves…and I’d like to give special mention to Khalid Abdalla. As Freddy, the Iraqi citizen turned Miller’s sidekick, Abdalla takes what is essentially a clichéd “look, not all Iraqis are bad” role and gives it a real human angle. It’s one of the film’s more compelling performances.

I’m not sure Green Zone is as effective a message movie as it wants to be – at this point in time it is probably just preaching to the choir, and its heavy-handedness can be a little off-putting (check out the way-too-obvious scene where Poundstone and friends cheer while watching Bush’s infamous “Mission Accomplished” speech). But if you put aside its oversimplification of an amazingly complex story, and just give yourself over to the pure visceral thrills of its storytelling, it’s a fairly satisfying piece of pop-action entertainment. I know it wants to be even more than that, but in an era where most Iraq War movies have been largely ignored by the public, it should be happy to take what it can get.


Actually, you know what? This picture might not be from Green Zone. Sorry about that.

The 411: Green Zone, the new non-Bourne collaboration of star Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass, is a somewhat frustrating film. It wants to be a hard-hitting message movie regarding the misinformation leading up to the Iraq War, but its oversimplification of the issues and clichéd "good guy vs. bad guy" mentality saps it of that power. On the other hand, that very same oversimplification and no-nonsense plotting, along with very good performances and excellently crafted action scenes, makes it one hell of an exciting thriller. Check it out for the entertainment, but don't expect to be bowled over by its sometimes heavy-handed politicizing.

Final Score:  7.0   [ Good ]