Green Zone: movie review
Despite its recent Oscar bonanza, 鈥�The Hurt Locker鈥� is in line with other Iraq-themed movies that have tanked at the box office, including 鈥�Stop-Loss,鈥� 鈥淚n the Valley of Elah,鈥� 鈥�Body of Lies,鈥� and 鈥淩endition.鈥� Now along comes 鈥�Green Zone,鈥� starring Matt Damon and directed by Paul Greengrass, who also made the last two 鈥淏ourne鈥� movies. Action-packed to a fault, it鈥檚 clearly intended to break the genre鈥檚 cycle of uncommerciality.
Damon plays Army Chief Officer Roy Miller, whose job it is to hunt down WMDs in the initial shock-and-awe stages of the Iraq invasion. Every location searched by his team draws a blank. When he confronts newly arrived Bush administration honcho Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear) with his suspicions about faulty intelligence, his concerns are pooh-poohed.
Miller tracks the bad intel to Wall Street Journal reporter Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan), whose reports, drawing exclusively on a confidential source named 鈥淢agellan,鈥� back the administrations convictions about the presence of weapons of mass destruction. Stonewalled on all sides, refusing to be co-opted by Poundstone, Miller improbably finds his only ally in Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson), a burly veteran CIA operative at odds with Poundstone. Acting essentially as his own operative, Miller tracks down the truth, employing a small cadre of allies including a Saddam-loathing local, Freddy (Khalid Abdalla).
Greengrass has made at least two politically themed movies in the past that transcended simple thrills: 鈥�United 93,鈥� which dealt with the terrorist attacks on 9/11, and the Northern Ireland civil rights drama 鈥淏loody Sunday.鈥� Both had a documentary-style immediacy that did not preclude political complexity.
But when Greengrass brought his edgy, hand-held stylistics to the 鈥淏ourne鈥� franchise, I began to long for a stationary camera. When I go to the movies, I鈥檓 not paying to get seasick. In 鈥淕reen Zone,鈥� the camera doesn鈥檛 hold still even when the characters are rooted in place. I鈥檝e never understood why directors think all this hoo-ha is indicative of high realism. On the contrary, it鈥檚 showoffy.
鈥淕reen Zone鈥� offers itself up as more realistic, more hard-hitting, than the typical war movie. But Greengrass and his screenwriter Brian Helgeland, attempting to provide bigger action and louder ka-booms, engineer a series of increasingly improbable plot devices. Supposedly 鈥渋nspired by鈥� Washington Post reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran鈥檚 scathing nonfiction book 鈥�,鈥� the film plays instead like a not terribly terrific 鈥淏ourne鈥� movie that got sidetracked to Baghdad.
While it鈥檚 bracing to have a big Hollywood movie confront the WMD fiasco, 鈥淕reen Zone鈥� goes further than this in the end by, in effect, rewriting history. It鈥檚 one thing for the filmmakers to (sort of) fictionalize real people 鈥� Poundstone is obviously based on Paul Bremer and Dayne on The New York Times鈥檚 Judith Miller 鈥� but 鈥淕reen Zone鈥� wraps up with a wish-fulfillment fantasy that is about as believable as watching reinforcements riding in to save Custer. Ironically, the film becomes an unintended and tragic reminder of what didn鈥檛 ensue. Grade: C+ (Rated R for violence and language.)
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