Green Zone review

Oh the joys and follies of telling friend you're going to go see a film like "Green Zone". Follies being when you have friends that would say things like 'it just looks like another 'Bourne' movie' or 'it's just another anti-war movie'. The joys being that you know that they've probably only seen Greengrass's two 'Bourne' films and otherwise don't know shit about what their talking about, because you have seen his other films and know how powerful they are. Of course if "Green Zone" wasn't a good film then perhaps there would be some validity to their statements. By the way it is a good film, a damn good entertaining as hell film, that allows past politics within war to ride shotgun with an enthralling thriller that's nothing like either 'Bourne' film Paul Greengrass has done and is a far more suspenseful and entertaining Iraq picture then most of the dozens we've gotten since 2003.

Matt Damon plays Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, whose job in Iraq is to track down WMDs. The problem is that time after time his Intel leads he and his team into busy civilian zones and resistance zones where they end up finding nothing. When looking into the matter Miller is constantly turned away, talked down to and told that everything is looked into and that it's not his concern where the information came from. It's not until Miller meets a grizzled CIA man (Brendan Gleeson) and a Wall Street Journal reporter (Amy Ryan) that things start to make some sense and the government created charade starts to crumble. Greg Kinear plays a government official who has the task of making sure the right people get into power and things are set up in place the way we want it for the new Iraq. This would mean keeping the charade going and thus making Miller, but more importantly the mysterious information man known as "Magellan" a huge threat.

I think I kind of summed that up nicely, although it's still a pretty damn complex series of moves in the picture. Screenwriter Brian Helgaland (one of my top three favorite screenwriters) worked hard to craft an interesting thriller set during the most controversial time of this controversial war and director Paul Greengrass once again displays his attention to characters, storytelling and craftsmanship in the use of gritty well done shaky-cam with the films few action sequences. One of which being a twenty minute chase sequence which is as tense and gritty and exciting to watch unfold. The night photography grain gives it an almost news reel look and feel and every edit is seamless. Few working directors can handle an intense look as well as Greengrass and even fewer can have it all make sense even when geographically it's hard to tell where you are.

The politics of "Green Zone" are something that's sure to arise controversy as did the book it's inspired by. What it boils down to is the same thing is boils down to with this war itself. Why do you believe we went to war? I've met plenty who buy into the official story and think it was to liberate a country and do some good in the world. I've met plenty that believe it was for oil and cooking up stories of nukes and all that was a good way to get our foot in the door without people asking too many questions. I don't judge people who believe either, I think both are very, very possible. But at the end of the day it's somewhat the rule of Chinatown, which is that helping one group can also be severely hurting another group and that sometimes the best policing is to do nothing, but keep an alert eye. It's harsh, but often it's the best way to keep your hands clean. There are ideas brought up in "Green Zone" that now probably would've made things go easier over there (for example NOT disbanding the Iraqi army and attempting to use those not loyal to Saadam to help us), but that's all in the past now and time can only tell how things will end up.

This is Greengrass's third docu-drama, but the first one that A: didn't make you want to cry in the end and B: was blended with the entertainment factor he controlled with the second and third 'Bourne' films. I extremely urge people to watch "Bloody Sunday" and "United 93" and you'll see a heavy side of what "Green Zone" is like. He goes back more to that style of film making and just dashes in a bit of that action sense that he's developed. The man's got one more docu-drama coming along and that's the long awaited "They Marched into Sunlight" which is sure to be tragic and heartbreaking as his other pieces of work. But for now he's just trying to deliver a fun as hell thriller with some brains and he has definitely accomplished that.