Green Zone 2010
When Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) is posted to Iraq to find evidence to justify the US invasion in the shape of weapons of mass destruction. So called solid Intel from shadowy source known as Majellan is coming up empty and when Miller decides to ask questions is told to shut up and do his job. CIA Operative Martin Brown ( a solid but strange accented Brendan Gleason) suggests that the information is suspect So while on manoeuvres in the field searching for the elusive WMD's, Miller and his team are approached by an Iraqi civilian who becomes known as simply Freddy (Khalid Abdalla) for the duration of the film. Freddy offers information that high ranking Iraqi officers are near by in house meeting, including Saddam right hand General Arawi (Yigal Naor).
Miller decides to try and capture the General and get to the bottom of the so called solid Intel but misses his chance and after acquiring the owner of the house and a book with possible information is pounced on by a special forces unit led by Briggs (Jason Issacs) who acquire the prisoner but fail to get the book. When Miller informs Brown that he has the book, Brown transfers Miller to his unit to investigate the information but is rapidly transformed back when he fails to cooperate with bureaucratic government operative Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear). Realising that Poundstone aided rather unbelievably by his very own special forces operative Briggs is looking to suppress the information that Arawi could provide. Miller deciding to go Rogue with Freddy alongside as an interpreter, sets out as a race against time to get to the General before Briggs and his team does.
This Paul Greengrass' third film with Damon has been a long time coming, three years in the making. Greengrass takes Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s Imperial Life In The Emerald City an account of the dubious US occupation of Iraq. Choosing to take the basic premise but instead of playing out more like All The Presidents Men as the book does, decides to cash in on his success with the two Bourne films he made with Damon and make a political popcorn action flick.
All well and good and Green Zone has it's fair show of thrilling action, although Greengrass' penchant for shaky cam is getting a little tiring now.
The opening sequence which sees Miller and his team occupying an area supposed to contain WMD's is full of this technique and makes it's hard to truly engage in the action. Damon is impressive enough as Miller are obvious hero who comes to the conclusion many of us all ready know, that we've been lied to. Greengrass would have you believe this film as well being an action movie is also asking hard questions but the problem is most people believe that the US and the UK occupied Iraq under dodgy circumstances already and a more journalist motivated film may have been more compelling than the Bourne goes to war effort we get here.
Gleeson is his usual solid self as the man encouraging Miller to dig deeper and providing a good amount of expostion, Kinnear is so obviously the villain of the piece and isn't given anything of any real depth to play with. Amy Ryan so outstanding in both The Wire and Gone Baby Gone is saddled with a role which sees her as so called crusading journalist who becomes aware she's been duped into perpetuating a lie. An actor of Issac's talent is totally wasted as Briggs Poundstone's special forces attack dog, sporting a rather ludicrous porno star like moustache. Any tough guy could have essayed this and his portrayal of Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter films contains more depth.
The characterisations are just not strong enough for us to truly engage with them, it's fair enough if he decided to make an exiting film like Kathryn Bigelow did with Hurt Locker (it shares the same cinematographer) and not preach but Greengrass obviously thinks he's saying something important here. The extended foot chase that concludes the films action is thrilling enough but the outcome like most of the film asks you what was the point? The conclusion to the sequence might have been supposed to been some kind of shock but it's signposted as soon as the character concerned is introduced. Greengrass had wanted to make a hybrid of realistic political thriller and gritty war movie but the sign off of the film with Damon's Miller giving his finger to his superiors is pure Hollywood and if the director had stuck to the action thriller side maybe this would have been allot more easy to swallow. Green Zone is Bond film compared to the likes of the far superior Syriana.
In a world of plenty of grey areas the film is as black and white as any popcorn blockbuster. Green Zone may well break the trend of films about the conflict not delivering the box office but it does at a price.
***/*****
Last edited by BluraySe7en; 03-21-2010 at 06:49 PM.
|
All countries
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Colombia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Estonia
Denmark
Finland
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
India
Latvia
Lithuania
Malaysia
New Zealand
Norway
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Singapore
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
j/k
Linear Mode
