User Reviews

Pretty interesting stuff. If anyone needs convincing that genres and cinematic vocabularies are evolving, all they have to do is go to the movies. This one is a part of a new trend, the war-detective genre. It is strictly noir, in the sense that forces outside our hero's world are at work on him. He is an ordinary Joe; he has amazing coincidences happen to him; he is trust into the role of detective and serves as our on-screen surrogate as we discover together some hidden perfidy. So innovation number one is that we have a war-detective genre almost fully formed already.

The action is there for the same reason that smoke was 50-60 years ago, to enrich the screen. But this is no longer a war movie based on the assumptions of the founding genre. Then, we went to these to help identify as a tribe, to re-enforce that identity by celebrating its natural values and of course we have to win. Not here.

In this case, we have what is widely known about these wars. They were a mistake, based on fictitious realities coaxed out of tortured detainees. The military here is not used to validate an identity, but to validate that we are estranged from the institutions we used to trust and venerate. Look at the characters: on the US side, everyone is a stock stereotype: smarmy Cheney factotum, grizzled CIA operative, earnest girl reporter, ,wild amoral snakeater, scads of lazy soldiers in battlefield luxury.

The only two interesting characters are Iraqi. They not only are real men with complex motives, but they are the ones with agency.

I can see that they had some trouble with how critical to be of the men in uniform. Apparently, a whole subplot about abuse of luxuries at Sadam's palace was jettisoned. Only a few scenes remain, necessary for the main plot. But that whole business, together with the name, is left dangling. I think the movie failed to make money because it is easy to buy into an evil operation managed from the White House. But we still find it hard to not think of the man in theater as anything but noble.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

In 'Green Zone,' the 'Bourne' action blockbuster team (led by Paul Greengrass and his star Matt Damon) goes to Iraq, or rather to a facsimile staged in Spain and Morocco, switching from a super-assassin's identity crisis to contemporary political and military history.

It seemed like this might be the great Iraq movie Americans haven't had, a blockbuster as exciting and real-feeling as Bigelow's Oscar-winning 'Hurt Locker,' but with real political context. 'Locker' is a superb battlefield action movie but it doesn't delve into the larger issues -- and, lacking a big name star, hasn't been seen by very many people, at least for a movie that won the Oscar for Best Picture. More analytical and contextual Iraq war movies like 'Lions for Lambs,' 'In the Valley of Eli,' 'The Messenger' or 'Rendition,' on the other hand, have been too small, anemic, and downbeat to be big box office. If anybody could turn this around and make an Iraq film that's both exciting and a think piece, the 'Bourne' guys could, right? Unfortunately, no, though the 'Bourne' team's involvement means 'Green Zone' will substantially outperform 'Hurt Locker' at the box office, and they have made an action movie that's boldly political, however deeply flawed. Let's bear in mind that the 'Bourne' movies are smart, but they're fantasy. Dealing with historical events is is a different kind of project.

The focus of 'Green Zone' is on the early stages of the 2003 US Iraq invasion. The writer, Brian Helgelund ('L. A. Confidential,' 'Mystic River') is trying to get across the information in Rajiv Chandrasekaran's non-fiction 'Imperial Life in the Emerald City' while telling an action tale that follows an investigating tough guy played by Damon. As described in the documentary 'No End in Sight,' the US authorities made a number of crucial mistakes in the run-up to the war and how the occupation was run. Helgelund gets all this across, but the result is a mash-up that lacks credibility or logic.

First US mistake: the key pretext for the invasion, Saddam Hussein's possession of "weapons of mass destruction" (or "WMD's"), proved illusory; no such weapons were found in locations where an Iraqi "credible source" said they were hidden. Matt Damon plays Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, who heads a squad charged with checking out places where US "intel" says there are WMD's stored. He points out the intel is bad, and soon finds out his opinion is not wanted by the higher ups, represented by Poundstone (Greg Kinnear), a Bush official who arrives with Ahmed Zubaidi (Raad Rawi) -- a stand-in for the actual Ahmad Chalabi, the US puppet the Bush administration foolishly thought could be put in to head a new government (another mistake). 'Green Zone' shows in a scene how spectacularly this fails.

Second, the allied forces did not prevent widespread looting or maintain the infrastructure. Chaos reigned in Baghdad and eventually the rest of Iraq and the invaders lost the "hearts and minds" of Iraqis, who were enraged at being deprived of safety, food, water, and a steady power supply. This is when Donald Rumsfeld uttered his line "Stuff happens." There's no Rumsfeld stand-in here, but the line "democracy is messy" occurs.

Third, the provisional authority chose to dismantle the entire Iraqi administrative structure, including all Baath Party members in government and the Iraqi army. With the second and third mistakes the US lost its credibility and made a vast number of unnecessary enemies, and the way was paved for chaos and civil war in the country.

After Chief Miller comes up with "doughnuts" at every supposed WMD location and becomes convinced the intel is no good in spite of being told at briefings it's pure gold, he becomes a cowboy and sets out on a zigzagged path of his own. He's supported by a high-ranking CIA officer with profound in-country experience named Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson), who knows the WMD locations are fake and sees a cover-up. Amazing how Miller encounters both Poundstone and Brown right away in the occupation's "safe" "Green Zone" palace HQ. In fact Miller has magical access. He also runs into a Wall Street Journal correspondent called Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan), who turns out to have touted the government's dubious WMD stories (received from Ahmad Chalabi) in widely read articles, and she's discovering that she was duped but trying to cover it up. Dayne is a stand-in for the Times's Judith Miller.

By this point it's obvious the screenplay is as schematic and implausible as 'The Hurt Locker's' is specific and real. Hence it's not surprising Chief Miler runs into "Freddy" (Khalid Abdalla) -- an Iraqi trying to guide any Americans he can find to a meeting of Baath leaders and cohorts held by a big Iraqi general, Al Rawi (Yigal Naor, an Israeli who specializes in playing Arab officials in American movies). Miller now turns into a rogue soldier, with Poundstone ordering him reassigned to his unit and Poundstone's more cooperative military operatives out to get him. Miller forgets about looking for WMD's and is now trying to "save lives" by tracking down Al Rawi, which involves sneaking into a prison with Freddy and a million dollars from his CIA ally, Brown.

This is where things get really exciting, with everybody chasing everybody else, and Greengrass and his dp Barry Akroyd (who incidentally did the photography for 'Hurt Locker,' as well as Greengrass' 'United 93') fully up to speed in the action sequences. 'Green Zone' is consistently good on that level, but that success is undermined by the overall implausibility. Helgelund is obviously interweaving themes from a book about US mismanagement and aloofness from reality in Baghdad with chases and shoot-outs staged to give his action hero work to do. Will this movie change anybody's perception of the Iraq war? Probably people who go just for the action will look on the political stuff as decoration, as it usually is. But you never know. . .

A tremendous Iraq thriller with a brave and contemporary storyline. It is a story, and not a history. Yet it does skilfully blend a number of important political and historical themes into a fiction. Director Paul Greengrass delivers the tale superbly, Matt Damon shines as the soldier who learns too much. Brendan "In Bruges" Gleeson is marvellous in a supporting role as a CIA officer. When Baghdad is "secured", the hunt for WMD's start, and as that search proves consistently fruitless, questions start to be asked, and it is Damon who is the literal and figurative means for asking them.

The plot revels in upsetting conventional stereotypes. The Americans are the good guys AND the bad guys. The Iraqis are simply trying to survive. And the press are neither good nor bad, just innocent dupes. Baghdad is convincingly portrayed as an anarchic hell-hole, the soldiers as decent men simply trying to do the job. However the Politicians fare less well.

It remains a mystery as to why America, a country which has been the economic and technological powerhouse of the world for a century, is so hopeless at Diplomacy and Foreign Affairs. The backdrop of an Administration which went to war with little appreciation of the country it was dealing with, and no appreciation of what to do once the war was over, is witheringly parodied . A puppet Iraqi leader who "less than ten Iraqis had ever heard of" is installed, and the American administrative presence is headed by a cynical functionary with no sympathy for the country at all "and a handful of Washington interns". The brutality of the American Military, replacing the brutality of Saddam makes for unsettling viewing.

Unsurprisingly, with Greengrass at the helm the action sequences are dynamic, realistic, and authentic. The hand held camera work is used effectively, unlike in the "Hurt Locker" where it is used because nothing else interesting is going on. Damon, as Chief Warrant Officer Miller, has to perform a role in mechanical plot terms which requires suspension of disbelief to great length, and for War Film purists, this will rankle. It is true that his freedom of action, movement and access bears no relation to the day to day reality of that role in real life. But hey, it's a story, and a good one.

I doubt that this film will play well to an American audience which is neither particularly bothered about Iraq, or is bothered about finding out much about it anyway. It's natural constituency is the more sophisticated British and European markets. But it is to the enormous credit of both Universal that they made this, and Matt Damon that he fronted it. It took a long while before America was prepared for verite stories about Vietnam, and subsequently it is those that are remembered. No doubt that same cycle will have to be lived for Iraq too.

Watching "Green Zone" is an enthralling cinematic experience. Even while going along for the engrossing, sensory-overload ridden and immensely satisfying trip, it brings to mind the 1969 Costa Gavras film, "Z". That film depicted the journey of discovery by a magistrate that led to the conclusion that the system of government he represented and sought to serve faithfully had been corrupted by forces of (US sponsored) ignorance, greed and cynicism. "I was posted in Greece for fifteen years. Papandreou wins that election if I don't have the junta take him prisoner. I've advised and armed the Hellenic army. I've neutralised champions of communism." (Philip Seymour Hoffman's CIA agent character in "Charlie Wilson's War") Both "Green Zone" and "Z" share that intellectually absorbing rigour. Both are powered by that same action driven, unyielding narrative momentum. The same conflict, car crash, colour and movement packed visceral involvement. The same unnerving, progressive revelation of corruption by unseen forces in high places and its effects on the actions of those who are condemned to take the consequences of that stupidity and evil in rather lower places. "Green Zone" brings to mind the observations about "good wars" (such as WWII) and "bad wars" (such as Vietnam) by Howard Zinn, author of "A Peoples History of America" and former neighbour, mentor and inspiration for Mat Damon. I enjoy the weekly privilege of listening to David Barsarmiane's excellent, Colorado-based "Alternative Radio" news and current history radio shows. My weekly public radio station fix has allowed me to acquaint myself with the analysis of such academic historians as Zinn, Naom Chomsky as well as former Marine and Iraq weapons inspector Scott Ritter. But for these who do not enjoy that privilege, it is all presented up on the big screen in "Green Zone". The slew of popular films that have been prompted by the Middle East military interventions, culminating in "Avatar", demonstrate the rich undercurrent of good old Yankee self-examination that has survived, albeit barely perceived by the public and its news media, since the Vietnam War disaster. Copolla's hero in "Apocalypse Now" summed it up with his, "Never get out of the boat" observation about the futility of opposing the puppet clowns in the Pentagon and the largely unseen forces that pull their strings. The general critical dismissal of "Charlie Wilson's War" as a light weight comedy, rather than a clinical dissection of how the forces of evil can so distort the conduct of foreign policy, bears witness to the difficulties faced by the prophets whose words would otherwise have to remain "written on the subway walls". But the fact that popular (rather than art house), big box office cinema is prepared to take on such a critical and analytical role, as opposed to that of mere purveyors of government propaganda that the Hollywood studios adopted during the Second World War, gives non-Americans hope that the USA might one day find true redemption.

Or does it? As the end credits rolled in the cinema in which I watched Green Zone, a lady sitting behind me complained to the bloke who had brought her about the unsatisfying experience to which she had been subjected. He countered that it was an OK war film. She insisted that it could all have been said in five minutes. Mat Damon, Soldier Miller, where ever you are. Will all your patriotism and self sacrifice meet with such mulish incomprehension? Are we condemned to live in a world in which the Mission Accomplished self delusion is considered to be more worthy than efforts of those who create such engrossing cinema as "Green Zone"?