Green Zone (2010) User Reviews

Were the characters real? You betcha!

[dsnider-790-336398 · 8/10 · 13 July 2010]

This movie is not a sequel to Bourne flicks. It is more in the spirit of Costa-Gravas or Oliver Stone. MET Alpha is Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha. The 85th XTF is the 75th Exploitation Task Force. CWO Miller is CWO Gonzalez. The reporter is, of course, Judith Miller, the New York Times (not WSJ) reporter who sold out to the Bush administration to get bylines. She used her position as shill for Rummy to keep MET Alpha in Baghdad, chasing their tails while American soldiers died trying to find non-existent WMD, for the sole purpose of backing up Bush's lies. Miller's folio is full of information from Curveball (Magellan). The CIA, who knew Curveball was a liar, was also warning Miller. A perpetually smiling Ahmad Chalabi keeps popping up. He is no doubt thinking how fine it is for the US Army to hand him an entire country along with a treasury of several hundred million dollars.

Miller is angry because he knows his intelligence is bogus, the CIA has told him that much, even though the Army vouches for it, and tells Miller to shut up and follow orders.

The Pentagon puke tries to bribe Miller with a job if he plays along, and offers a veiled threat if he doesn't.

The movie is history, and not a simple action adventure flick. It follows actual events very closely. Knowing the facts makes the movie much more fascinating.

Green Light For Green Zone

[briandconnor · 8/10 · 3 February 2010]

Green Zone is the latest Iraq War inspired motion picture. I wasn't expecting much and ended up being pleasantly surprised. It's a fast paced and riveting ride from the get-go. The war being fought in the film is more between the Pentagon and the CIA than the US v Iraq which makes it all the more interesting and the film allows you to see things from Iraq's perspective for a change. The premise set up in the film regarding the 'Intelligence' regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction used to justify the invasion is entirely believable. Matt Damon is well suited to his part as a unit leader Roy Miller, as is Brendan Gleeson as the CIA man and Greg Kinnear is refreshingly nasty as Poundstone from the Pentagon - all turn in good performances. Shot on location in Morocco, Spain and in England I could have sworn we were in Bagdad the whole time - settings are very convincing. Yes, there is too much hand- held camera movement that quickly brought on discomfort followed by a headache but that is my only negative and as the film doesn't outstay its welcome I'm willing to concede the shakiness probably lends an 'embedded' realism. Is any of the plot or characters based on real events or people? I have no idea other than learning the film is based on the 2006 non-fiction book 'Imperial Life in the Emerald City' by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a journalist for The Washington Post. I haven't read the book so I can't comment on how closely the film follows it. I spent a few moments of the film wondering about the story's authenticity but as a piece of cinema entertainment in its own right Green Zone gets the green light from me.

Bourne in Iraq plus some conspiracy. Entertaining, but purely fictional.

[siderite · 8/10 · 18 June 2010]

Green Zone is a movie about a soldier, leader of the team hunting for WMDs in Iraq, tries to step over the official army bullshit line and the red tape and actually achieve something. He gets a lucky break in finding a lead on general Al Rawi (the Jack of clubs in the famous Iraqi card deck) and stumbles upon a secret that explain not only why there are no WMDs, but also why (or better said how) the Americans came to enter the war.

As a movie it is a neat action film. A slightly less physical Bourne in Iraq, but with a political edge. It features shootings, helicopters, drama, conspiracies, evil suits, mislead Americans (represented, of course, by a journalist) lots of people speaking Arabic for no good reason other than they are Iraqi and lots of cramped alleyways.

There was a controversy about how the movie seems to reflect upon a real story. The real-life Roy Miller (actually Richard Gonzales, but shh, Miller sounds better), who also worked as a consultant for the movie, has issued a statement in which he clearly states the plot is a fantasy. I like how he ends the statement: "The real story of the hunt for WMD is, in fact, more interesting. Maybe one day, someone will want to tell that story.". A bit sad and a bit hopeful. Maybe History Channel will pick up on it in a few decades, when the heat is off ;)

Bottom line: well done action thriller, better than most, but then I like Matt Damon as an actor, so maybe I am biased. Certainly above average.

Exciting action but some tough questions too

[rogerdarlington · 19 March 2010]

British director Paul Grengrass + American actor Matt Damon = "The Bourne Supremacy", "The Bourne Ultimatum" and now "Green Zone", so we know what to expect here - and we're not disappointed. From the opening seconds, we're into the action with the trademark Greengrass 'in the action' frenetic camera-work and sharp editing. Although the film is said to be inspired by the non-fiction book "Imperial Life In The Emerald City" by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a journalist for The Washington Post, the conspiratorial storyline is the invention of Greengrass who developed the original script.

If the tension isn't as excruciating at that other Iraq movie "The Hurt Locker", at least "Green Zone" has a narrative and poses some questions, hard questions that many American viewers would probably were rather not aired: what was the source of the 'intelligence' that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction? why was the source so readily believed when the evidence was so thin? could the bloody insurgency which followed the relatively easy initial occupation have been avoided if the Americans had been willing to work with elements of the Iraqi army?

See the movie and think about the issues. As a central Iraqi character puts it: "It's not up to you to determine what happens in this country."

Unexpectedly good in an unexpected way.

[itachi618 · 7/10 · 20 March 2010]

Feel like seeing an action flick, watching bodies fly everywhere, and good guys kill bad guys? Do not see this movie.

Green Zone was a very surprising experience for me. I was on the way to the cinema expecting, as several posters quoted, 'Born goes epic'. Instead, I got a nice combination of politics, moral dilemmas, and maybe even some very light philosophy.

The film takes a popular, but still a controversial & for many people shameful, view on the Iraq war. The plot is complex but relatively easy to follow thanks to a(sometimes too) straight-forward set up, good directing, and sensible scene sequences. The plot does not bring you any traditional action flick twists and rarely pushes you to the edge of the seat, but makes up for it by making you think about some of the more real and worrying aspects of war and politics. The characters could have used some more development and dynamic, but on the bright side it was nice to not have every single thing rotate around Bourne. On the contrary, throughout the whole movie the focus was on a wider picture rather than on any of the more specific details in the story itself. It was nice to see the lines between bad & good drawn in such a blurry manner. I was confused and indecisive in labelling characters as on the goody or the baddie side. The plot had an interesting ending, slightly ruined by a cheesy line from one of the characters, but brilliantly made up for by a fantastic scene of Baghdad at night. I found that whilst the epilogue of the movie was needed to explain consequences, something like a few sentences appearing on a black screen would have finished the movie in a much nicer mood than that in which it finished in reality. The plot took up an intellectual viewpoint on the Iraq war and gave me something to think about on the subject of both the Iraq war and the idea of war in general. This was something that you rarely see in movies like this, and made the movie the enjoyable experience that it is.

The directing & cinematography in the movie were nothing special. Several style ideas were re-used from the Bourne movies, and action was not always as gripping as one might want, or at least expect. However, it was never bad either - all sequences kept a consistent standard of dialogue, special effects, and the little action that there was.

The acting in the movie was one of the few things that I expected. Matt Damon delivered his usual performance: a cool, in-control soldier committed to get to the bottom of things. The supporting actors all delivered their parts well enough, with Greg Kinnear holding his usual cunning, conniving, corrupt, money-thirsty politician role. However, because, as mentioned before, the film focused on a wider picture, the acting did not put me off the movie in any way whatsoever. The one other thing which the movie lacked almost entirely throughout was humour. It's always nice to get a giggle in between moral implications and people dying all over the place.

I have given the movie 7 out of 10 in total, with seven points for wider plot depth, intellectual aspects, directing & cinematography, CGI & special effects, and the last three points deduced for acting, immediate plot depth, action sequences, and humour, or rather the lack of it. It's a pleasant and original surprise, and something that will make you think after leaving the cinema.

MK

A thriller that doesn't forget its political foundations

[jamesgill-1 · 7/10 · 14 April 2010]

The new offering from Paul Greengrass is an intriguing progression from his previous films. Marrying the political engagement of films such as 'Bloody Sunday' with the blockbuster attraction of the Bourne films, 'Green Zone' was always going to promise attractive viewing, and it doesn't disappoint.

Matt Damon's character, Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, is in charge of an American Armed Forces unit in search of Weapons of Mass Destruction during the early stages of the Iraq conflict. When their search proves fruitless, Miller begins to question the supposedly 'solid' intelligence that gave the locations of these WMD sites. The plot follows Miller's demand for answers from an unstable command desperate to hide them, revealing a political division at the heart of the U.S administration.

Yes, this is fiction, but Greengrass has become adept at tapping into our taste for conspiracy, contextualising his stories within a political reality that has become all too familiar to us since the invasion began in 2003. It's thrilling stuff, and I think that is the key word to remember when watching this film. Thriller. Yes, there is political content here, and yes, it does hold up to some scrutiny. For example, the opening of the movie portrays the sense of confusion of conflicting command structures particularly well, really getting into the disorientation and intrigue of a military operation that isn't going as planned. The role of journalist Laurie Dayne (played by Amy Ryan) also provides a well-executed analysis of how the media's coverage of the facts can be impaired by the manoeuvrings of political and military authority.

There are moments when this political engagement appears heavy-handed, but that is because the director's priority is always, first and foremost, entertainment. For example, there is nothing subtle about Damon's character walking into a scene of Americans drinking and lounging by the pool of one of Saddam Hussein's palaces. Furthermore, the film suffers from conventional Hollywood stereotypes when it tries to depict the 'downtrodden-yet-hopeful' Iraqi citizen, who works with Miller in order to expose the truth about his country. Khalid Abdalla (best known for his lead role in 'The Kite Runner') does his best with the material available, but the role lacks depth and complexity, and for me is one of the few disappointments of the film.

But, as I said, this a work of fiction, and there are plenty of moments where our taste for excitement and spectacle is satisfied. Greengrass' now familiar 'handycam' filming style is appropriate to the sense that we are never sure as an audience where the threat is going to come from. It provides a kick of adrenaline to the action sequences, making us feel the sand in our mouths as we are thrown to the floor, and adds docudrama realism to the events on screen. Some of the reviews I have seen complained about this style of cinematography, but I think Greengrass has managed to make the technique contribute to the content of his film, rather than becoming overly intrusive or threatening our cinematic experience.

There is a delicious feeling of melodrama to the piece as a whole – the moustached Jason Isaacs as the sinister Special Forces operative provides a gripping counterbalance to the inquiring Matt Damon. Brendan Gleeson is superb as the CIA agent that won't roll over and accept the demands of the military and political commanders. Indeed, the cast as a whole appears to work well together in a film that successfully marries the need for political engagement with the desire for cinematic spectacle. It is a film designed for box office appeal, and yet despite this it doesn't compromise on the political foundations on which it is based. Its climax is a fine reward for the audience's suspense – in short, a well-worked film that cuts to the heart of our craving for conspiracy and revelation.

James Gill (Twitter @jg8608)

Green means go

[Simon_Says_Movies · 7/10 · 23 March 2010]

Green Zone is a film that deafly navigates the possibly disastrous path of action saturation, creative liberties and touchy subject matter. Matt Damon's and director Paul Greengrass' third effort after The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum tells the fictionalized but accurate account of the span following the opening siege of Iraq, where the supposed WMD program of Saddam Hussein failed to unveil itself. Green Zone will keep those looking for a sharp action-war film entertained and enrapture those interested in the politically charged events of the war without alienating either group.

This may not be the hard hitting expose for which some may be yearning, but it is all we could hope for in a mainstream Hollywood product. Greengrass is certainly no stranger to the events surrounding Iraq, having already helmed the highly touted United 93 which tells the story of one of the doomed planes on September 11th of 2001. His obvious passion for the subject gives Green Zone the gravitas and grounding a film like this needs and with the exception of multi-Oscar winner The Hurt Locker and Ridley Scott's Middle Eastern thriller Body of Lies this is the strongest of the growing glut of such movies.

Damon stars as Roy Miller, a chief warrant officer who is at the forefront for the search of WMD sites, all of which were gathered from a mysterious source known only as 'Magellan'. When site after site turns up empty, Miller begins to ask questions that high ranking officials do not want asked. With seemingly his only friend in all this, Marin Brown (Brendan Gleeson) a veteran CIA operative, and an Iraqi interpreter named Freddy, Miller goes rogue to uncover the truth. Standing in his way are the remaining loyal insurgents, a Whitehouse bureaucrat named Poundstone (Greg Kinnear) who wants to keep things on track and his asset on the ground who is tasked with stopping Miller's inquiries.

Matt Damon is extremely solid here. He has no weepy dramatic scenes or big blow-ups through which to act showy. He is very believable and low key and is an infinitely charismatic and commanding presence on screen. Kinnear is also quite good as the slimy suit that stands in the way of our hero and the lesser know supporting cast all drive home noteworthy performances as well. Much has been said about Greengrass' hand-held camera technique which seems to leave some on the nauseous side. I have however, come up with a theory in light of all the critics starting to get on my nerves and actually managing to turn my attention to the so called shaky cam, which has never before bothered me.

Take for example film critic James Berardinelli who seems to be on the line when it comes to that style of shooting. For the latter two Bourne films, he made ample criticism of the shaky cam and it would seem that his overall consensus reflected such. For Green Zone he claimed the vibration was far more restrained, which is in contrast to most other critics who claimed it was the worst yet. My theory? One's perception of the film is not due to the camera movement, but rather the inverse. Depending on how engrossed a person is with the material, performances etc that is how watchable they perceive the film to be. So in the case of Berardinelli, the camera movement was likely fairly similar, but he found Green Zone's material simply better.

Cinematography aside, Green Zone is a rousing action film with a spectacular climax. Not only will it keep you entertained on a Friday night, but it will serve as a reminder of what happened in Iraq every time you press play.

Read all my reviews at simonsaysmovies.blogspot.com

The Truth about WMD

[claudio_carvalho · 7/10 · 25 July 2010]

I do not like movies about the invasion of Iraq, and I have never understood how "The Hurt Locker" that was released straight-to-video in Brazil could win an Oscar. However, "Green Zone" blends truth with fiction about the inexistent weapons of massive destruction (WMD) that was the justification of the American government to invade that millenary country.

The excellent Matt Damon is tailored for this type of action movie and performs the role of a captain of the American army pursuing the truth about the WMD in Iraq and finds a conspiracy with the involvement of a high level Pentagon representative. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Zona Verde" ("Green Zone")

An all-around winner

[cpbadgeman · 8/10 · 12 April 2010]

One of the common threads linking films about the Iraq war is a sense of deep ambiguity about it's morality and purpose. "Green Zone" is no exception. Matt Damon skilfully portrays Roy Miller, an Army Warrant Officer whose unit is tasked with searching suspected WMD facilities for proof of the existence of Iraqi chemical, nuclear, and biological weapons. A chance encounter with a sympathetic Iraqi civilian puts Miller on the trail of an Iraqi general who could provide him with the evidence that he needs. However, the Pentagon, the recently deposed Baathists, and the CIA all have different agendas for Iraq's future and Miller finds himself being used by players from all sides.

This is a tautly paced, engrossing thriller that inhabits a moral world where all colors are shades of gray. The cast are excellent and the direction is top-notch. Particularly noteworthy is the realistic and sympathetic depiction of the Iraqi characters, irrespective of their allegiances. There is no shortage of action and the plot keeps you guessing until the credits roll. Along with "The Hurt Locker" this is one of the best films about the Iraq war and a brilliant night out to boot.

It Is Not For You To Decide What Happens Here....

[wandernn1-81-683274 · 7/10 · 2 May 2021]

I remember watching this when it first came out. Lets watch again see how it applies 10 years later...

A pretty good representation through action and plot of what exactly the US doesn't belong doing in Iraq, and that's trying to establish the US way of thinking in their government.

7/10.

Intelligent action thriller

[gilligan-11 · 8/10 · 19 March 2010]

The Green Zone is that rarest of films—a well-written, rousing action thriller with a political conscience that perceptively deconstructs the idiocy of war. From the very first scene, the action grabs you and throttles you for the ensuing two hours—although the story is fairly complex, the exposition is handled deftly, and—despite the constantly jolting camera work—it's pretty easy to follow along with what's happening. Matt Damon delivers a strong performance as an Army Warrant Officer who truly cares about the justifications for his actions—he has no problem being a good soldier, as long as he knows that there are clear moral reasons behind what he's been ordered to do. Unfortunately, during the early days of the Iraq War, clear moral reasons were in very short supply, and Damon's character battles an array of competing military and political agendas as he searches for the truth behind the military's search for the ever-elusive Weapons of Mass Destruction rumored to be hidden in Iraq. This film is so well done, and Damon is so good in it, that I'm starting to consider the Greengrass/Damon tandem on a par with the Scorsese/DeNiro and Scorsese/DiCaprio pairings. Damon's best work (the last two Bourne films and this one) has come with Greengrass at the helm—here's to hoping they make many more fine films together.

Well Made and Action Packed

[filmmaniac111 · 7/10 · 6 March 2010]

Numerous plot twists and action sequences are going to unfold in front of Greengrass' camera not necessarily with new ideas but still awesome, making verbs just as deadly as a weapon.

The directing is consistent: the legendary style of the director doesn't change whether he's filming the chase of a key character or just... a simple verbal confrontation.

But if the solo walk of Jason Bourne or the confined spaces of United 93 forced him to film in a chaotic way with extreme close ups, Greengrass managed to take a step back regarding his mise-en-scene. The shots end up being larger, almost as if to say that these characters have a future.

It's also the occasion to film, without insistence, a demolished Iraq because of attacks not always justifiable, the director of photography(Barry Ackroyd) manages to capture pain and suffering with the talent of a war photographer. That image also fuels the anger of a country turned toward civil war because of this need to judge somebody on mere intent.

So does that make Green Zone an anti-American film? Of course not. There is, through the hero played by Damon or the female journalist played by Amy Adams, the idea that a decent moral world is possible if it's durability is assured by people not corrupted by the system. Overall, an EXCELLENT FILM IN ALL RESPECTS, though it could have had less plot twists.

Director- Paul greengrass

[kohzad · 1/10 · 23 March 2019]

This is the 3rd movie from this director that's unwatchable due to shaky camera. It gets me very nauseous. Not sure why Paul thinks editing a movie in such a way is natural, unless he has a mental imbalance of sorts and sees the world through a shaky lens. From ruining the Bourne trilogy after the first one (loved the first one, NOT directed by g-grass), I'm not sure why anyone would hire a cuckoo 'director'.

a timely, exciting thriller

[Quinoa1984 · 7/10 · 16 March 2010]

Green Zone has been promoted by Universal Studios with its plot mostly obscured, wrapped around the mysterious figure "Magellan". Watching the trailer, one only gets a vague sense that the film it set in Iraq and that Matt Damon's character, Roy Miller, is searching for Weapons of Mass Destruction in 2003. It looks, perhaps appropriately, like a close cousin to the Bourne movies, of which Paul Greengrass was also director.

It's not a bad move, since it is a lightning-quick movie in its editing and camera-work (though nowhere near as much as the adrenaline-overloaded 'Ultimatum'), but the film is more akin to Greengrass' United 93. Both films, that one about the fourth plane hijacked on 9/11 that crashed in Pennsylvania, and this one about the whole reason the US went to war, take the viewer back to a point that is fresh in our collective memory- maybe too soon some would say, others not soon enough- when chaos was fully erupting, for a few hours or within grasp of a Pentagon phone call.

It's not the most light of touches Greengrass takes to the material in terms of the script. The screenplay he has to work with by Brian Hegeland takes some fictional liberties with what are factual cases: the US did take advice from an unreliable source (or rather the US listened to what they wanted to hear), they kept coming up empty-handed after already months of inspecting before the invasion, and they're still told to dig despite the futility. This is all fine, though I wonder if the film would have benefited from just a little more characterization, aside from the types and casting to them (Damon as the determined hero, Kinnear as the clean-cut but sleazy bureaucratic villain, Gleeson as the helpful CIA character, Ryan as the frustrated embedded journalist), and sometimes spelling out too clearly the points of history.

And yet it's hard to begrudge a film with so much else going on as well. What makes Green Zone powerful is Greengrass' visceral approach to the material, again more akin to United 93 than the Bourne movies. We're wrapped up in each step of the story, like a mystery infused with the purpose and drive of the hand-held camera (done by someone who knows well, Barry Akroyd of the Hurt Locker), and we want to see where it goes. There aren't too many big surprises in the story, despite its slight liberties, since it's always seemingly realistic in its scope of cinematography and technique. When Roy Miller's team does a daytime raid of a place with a suspected Sadaam general, the tension is thick and the payoff is juicy and satisfying. That there turns out to be ambiguity in Miller's situation (the line "Don't be naive" is repeated but necessary) gives some added urgency to Greengrass' direction.

If you're one of the few people on planet Earth who still are not sure whether there were WMD's in Iraq (and you're probably Dick Cheney if you're one of them), then obviously the film isn't for you. It would seems like a given now, that it was one of those blatant lies that people were told to get over as the US would be there to stay in Iraq for an indeterminable amount of time (this despite the Mission Accomplished stunt, shown here in Green Zone again punctuating the story like a sudden exclamation point). But if Green Zone does approach this material a little thick, it's still in service of the long run historically, and comes second after being an entertaining action-mystery. People years from now can look at Green Zone first as a suspense film, a war film shot rigorously and with its black-white-gray areas surely defined, and then as a history lesson. It's an imperfect but important film for our times.

Hollywood's version of the Iraq war

[MLDinTN · 7/10 · 23 January 2011]

I'm guessing this movie is purely fiction and not based on any facts. It's just the conspiracy theory a lot of people believe concerning W's administration. It's the lefty's version of the war.

I thought the movie was pretty good and entertaining. I had never heard of it before watching it on cable. Matt Damon plays Miller, head of a military unit. He is questioning the fact that they are sent on missions to find WMD, yet always come up empty. He thinks they are getting bad intel and enlists the help of reporters. From talking to an Iraqi prisoner he helped capture, he finds out whom Magellen is. Magellen is the code name for the Iraqi source for WMD. What he finds leads to even bigger government conspiracies. So he is trying to prove what he knows before the big government guys, like Greg Kinnear, can cover it up and silence people.

I thought the last part with the chase through the city was filmed well. It made sense, was suspenseful, and I think it had the right ending. You know most of the locals did not like the Iraqi military.

FINAL VERDICT: a movie worth checking out.

A bit silly, but well made.

[CineCritic2517 · 6/10 · 15 February 2011]

Damon plays Roy Miller, Chief officer of a small unit based in Iraq assigned to search out locations which supposedly contain Weapons of Mass Destruction. The sites they search all turn up empty which leads Miller on a goose chase trying to uncover the truth about the source of the intel that pinpoints to those locations. 'Green Zone' is basically one long extended scene shot entirely in hand-held, hopefully not causing you to throw up half way through the film due to motion sickness. The plot is somewhat nonsensical, but if you can see past the obvious silliness, it could be a very suspenseful ride. The action scenes are well constructed and a lot of the film's budget clearly went into recreating the post invasion mayhem in Baghdad. It does so very convincingly.

68/100

You Can't Handle the Truth

[ferguson-6 · 6/10 · 13 March 2010]

Greetings again from the darkness. The trailers and the involvement of director Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon gave me the initial impression this was to be little more than a "Bourne" rip-off. I am happy to report that's not the case. This is a fantastic story that is a cross between an Iraqi War movie and political thriller.

Matt Damon plays an officer responsible for following the military intel for WMD locales in the early days of the invasion. He gets more frustrated and untrusting as each target comes up empty. When he questions the intel to his superiors, he is "politely" told to follow his orders. At the same time, he is approached by a grizzled CIA veteran played by Brendan Gleeson. The CIA happens to agree with Damon's character ... the intel is faulty and the belief is an ulterior motive is at play by the administration.

Of course, this is not a documentary. It is merely another step in the exploration of what the driving force was for invading Iraq in the first place. Were WMD's a cover for the pursuit of Saadam? The script is based on a book, and leads us to believe the WMD intel was rigged because that was a great reason to present to our allies and citizens. The disconnect between the administration and the CIA appears evident. A smarmy Greg Kinnear plays an administration official who has much power ... and a special forces team reporting directly to him.

The film highlights the blunders and poor decisions made early on in the invasion. Not really sure if they were blunders or if the mission was simply misguided. Either way, this makes for a great story and an intense one to follow. A real statement is made when one of the locals who has been assisting Damon, surprises him and states something along the lines of "You don't get to decide the fate of my country". That's not the exact quote, but it is the key point the film is making.

The bad news is that Paul Greengrass is at his shaky camera worst. The first 15 minutes of the film and the climax chase scene to, through and outside the safe house were so bad that I felt queasy. I love well placed hand-held camera work, but this was beyond extreme - it was quite simply over the top and distracts from what should have been a near-classic.

Trailers produced by George W.Bush!

[dfle3 · 8/10 · 11 April 2010]

I saw trailers for this movie on t.v (in Australia)...it seemed to be an action hero type movie...I actually wondered if this was the new "Bourne" movie for Matt Damon! Perhaps this promotional approach was due to a recent run of movies critical of the US in the current Iraq war being box-office misses. Anyway, I was prepared to watch the movie based on the trailers, but had second thoughts when the nature of the movie was mentioned on a movie review show on TV here in Australia. That nature concerned the movie venturing into the rationale of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

So, taking a punt, I saw the movie armed with this new information. It's actually good...not depressing like movies with this type of theme can be. Not sure how much reality there is to it...it seems to cover the bases on the reasons given as to why the US invaded Iraq and the underlying reality on the ground.

What's particularly interesting is how the Pentagon and the C.I.A. are depicted. No doubt there are numerous American movies where both organisations are depicted as suspect or evil. Here, one organisation comes off as acting in good faith and acting morally. Don't know enough about the war to say for certain if any US organisation can claim to have acted ethically, but this dichotomy is illuminating for the factoids it throws at the audience.

If the movie does have a lot factual truth to it, then some of the events in it are truly disturbing...e.g. how the U.S. deals with people who may be able to disprove the official government line on the reasons for the war. Maybe this is just artistic license, or perhaps it's real politic as far as the U.S. goes...and anyone who has read Noam Chomsky knows that the U.S. goes all the way.

I'm reminded of General Colin Powell's hand-on-the-heart moment in the U.N. where he showed satellite photos of vehicles and swore that these were mobile weapons of mass destruction delivery vehicles. Turns out that they were milk trucks...like the Iraqis said they were. It's this 'evidence' which convinced a reluctant U.N. to take the US' assertions as true and to authorise the invasion of Iraq. This movie's trailer is like General Colin Powell's moment of infamy...the trailer bears no relation to what you actually see. But it's more compelling than what the general's photo turned out to be.

Matt Damon (as Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller) makes for a good lantern-jaw type hero...if such a figure actually exists, you'd think they would have have been run out of the ranks for not towing the official line. Anyway, the movie is about Miller's role in finding those elusive weapons of mass destruction that President Bush assured us were there. When he doesn't have much luck finding them, he wants to find out why...

Good flick, liberal point of view, camera shake nearly ruined it.

[jdonalds-5 · 7/10 · 14 March 2010]

We just returned from the theater watching the Green Zone. Overall I thought the movie was good. Certainly the sets and action were great and the story line was interesting (although taken from a liberal point of view politically).

I have to agree with another reviewer. The artificial camera shake nearly ruined this movie for me. I don't mind a hand held camera but this was way over the top. I had to close my eyes several times because it was so bad. I don't know what drives directors to use this technique. It distracted from the overall presentation. I will be leery of viewing movies directed by Paul Greengrass in the future. Perhaps I'll wait to read viewer reviews to see if he uses this camera shake technique before I pay to see one of his movies again.

I rate this 7 stars taking one star off for the story line and two for the camera shake.

Superior Conspiracy Thriller

[Rathko · 9/10 · 18 March 2010]

I always find it slightly comical when people complain of hand-held camera-work. It reminds me of an old woman hearing The Chemical Brothers and wincing in pain – "They don't really call that music do they?" Personally, my eyes have been able to follow a moving object ever since I was a child. I have no problem with a hand-held camera.

As for the movie, 'Green Zone' is an excellent action thriller about a US Army Warrant Officer investigating the shady reasons why the military intelligence being fed to the Iraq Survey Group is failing to uncover weapons of mass destruction in post-invasion Baghdad. Much of the ensuing shenanigans are inspired by the findings of both the Iraq Intelligence Commission Report and the UK's Butler Review, which in 2004 found that pre-war intelligence had been highly suspect.

I say 'inspired' because 'Green Zone' is fiction—unless I blinked and missed it, there's no opening title card claiming "based on a true story". Conservatives, so often unable to discern fact from fiction, will view the film as a piece of docudrama reportage and find it deeply flawed, as it would be if it purported to be such a thing. The rest of us will recognize that Greengrass has crafted an excellent conspiracy thriller that simply uses the controversial politics of post-war Iraq as background color, and does so very well. As is to be expected from a director who, at this point in his career, can do this stuff in his sleep, the action sequences are brilliantly choreographed, the tension masterfully built, and the characters multi-layered. The cinematography that others have called "ugly" I found added a sense of realism, particularly in the grainy night scenes. My only complaint is a couple of instances in which Iraqi characters begin spouting embarrassing soap-box polemic. It isn't that such thoughts are out of character, just the way they are expressed; the dialogue being too obvious and cheesy. Thankfully, such moments can be counted in seconds rather than minutes. What's so impressive about 'Green Zone' is the seemingly authentic locations. It really does look as though it were filmed in Baghdad. Instead, it was shot on location in England and Spain. A production designer hasn't worked such magic since 'Full Metal Jacket' converted a London parking lot into the battlefields of Vietnam.

'Green Zone' is an excellent movie that will be thoroughly enjoyed by fans of political conspiracy thrillers. It isn't presented as factual, and only fools would look to a movie for facts. For facts, read books or, better yet, read the Iraq Intelligence Commission Report and the Butler Review. But don't blame Paul Greengrass for your laziness and stupidity in mistaking his excellent movie for a representation of 'truth'.

This Greengrass-Damon collaboration is "shaky" but full of intensity

[Movie_Muse_Reviews · 7/10 · 14 March 2010]

Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon, you say? So another Bourne movie? Although those names combined with the trailer combined with Damon's character Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller going rogue combined with mention of a code name person/project that Damon's character wants answers about might indiscreetly imply the fast-paced action of renegade assassin Jason Bourne, "Green Zone" is entirely different. It's a politically-fueled historical fiction thriller that blends Operation Iraqi Freedom facts with a conventional but effective conspiracy plot.

Miller is in charge of a unit investigating potential WMD sites, all of which have been fruitless to this point. With no confirmed discovery of WMD, Miller starts asking questions of the intel he's been receiving, questions which wrap him into an amoral vortex of war politics involving a government official named Clark Poundstone (Kinnear) trying to cover up the mysterious intel source called "Magellan" and a CIA man (Gleeson) who plans to use Miller to thwart Poundstone. Also in the mix is Amy Ryan as an American journalist looking for similar answers.

The action of the film centers around Miller trying to track down the jack of clubs, aka one of Saddam Hussein's men who's on the Iraq's most wanted playing cards. In general, however, there is not a ton of action, at least not the kind of combat that one with Bourne-sized expectations would be looking for. The suspense and intensity comes from Greengrass' guerrilla-style filming. It's like the camera is documenting Miller as he goes on these fairly dangerous missions, much like an embedded journalist would.

The downside to this gritty feel, which in present times can only be compared to "The Hurt Locker" despite the enormous differences between the films, is a bit of "Cloverfield" syndrome. Don't sit too close to the screen during this film -- after awhile the hand-held camera starts to unsettle even the least motion-sick of moviegoers. Without question Greengrass makes "Green Zone" a unique and much more intriguing film with this technique -- one to stand out among other Iraq war pictures -- but two hours without a single tripod is tedious.

"Green Zone" is a fairly conventional story adapted by Oscar-winner Brian Helgeland from the book by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. There aren't many surprises and at times it lapses into trite thriller dialogue, namely the poorly nurtured scenes between Ryan's journalist and Kinnear's prick-ish bigshot. One gets the sense that war thrillers that try to stick closely to historical accuracy are not Helgeland's ("L.A. Confidential," Mystic River") strength, but the film moves quickly and for much of the first hour feels rather genuine, taking Americans back to "shock and awe" and reminding us of how at first we truly felt going into Iraq was not only warranted but also right.

Miller's skepticism of the intel reflects the views of most Americans back in 2003, that desire to hear the reason we were in Iraq when no WMD were found. For an action thriller that's kind of oddly political. The film's anti-war statement (did you see that one coming?) fights with the suspense for your brain's attention, but messages aside, "Green Zone" never gets to the point where it stops being entertaining or interesting. Greengrass might have stuck your retinas in a blender and kept it on high the whole time, but it doesn't undermine his strong ability to convey intensity on film.

~Steven C

Visit my site at http://moviemusereviews.com

Hold the cameras still for goodness sake!!!!!

[kit_dwyer · 1/10 · 9 May 2021]

Directors need to learn that when they don't hold the cameras still when filming, the viewers are really turned off. It makes some of us nauseous and dizzy and this is not enjoyable at all. I don't even know what this movie is about because I cant watch this up down side side up down. Geez!!!

It's Not Easy Being Green

[MadHatter21 · 7/10 · 14 March 2010]

If one were to step outside into the Iraqi sunshine in The Green Zone, they might see people taking photos like tourists. They might see administrators in suits walking to and fro like they owned the joint. In short, they might think that since The Coalition took Baghdad and fortified this ten square kilometre area, the success of the mission was well in hand.

But as all the political manoeuvring of Matt Damon's latest film shows us, one shouldn't be so naive.

THE GREEN ZONE is well aware of its mission, and that mission isn't to be a totem of the antiwar movement. It sacrifices validity for entertainment. Its story of a soldier calling his own plays and working in direct competition with his own commanding officers won't be used as an example in any debate of American policy anytime soon. But you know what folks? There's nothing wrong with that.

THE GREEN ZONE is more interested in taking a building-block kernel of truth and using it to construct an intense bit of political intrigue. The audience follows right in step with Chief Roy Miller for every intense moment of the play he has called. It doesn't matter to the movie, nor to the audience, that Miller couldn't possibly call a play like this. The success of this clearly needs to be credited to the creative pairing of director Paul Greengrass and star Matt Damon.

There are few directors working in Hollywood today who seem to be able to do intrigue and action better than Greengrass. Admittedly, his use of hand-held "shaky cam" can be a bit much for some viewers, but he has a way of grounding action sequences. The action becomes more plausible and intense, and less about mach-six editing and expansive pyrotechnics. Damon meanwhile works rather well as an action star because he finds a way to retain his everyman demeanour, shrugging off the superhero persona that makes many A- list actors unbelievable in moments of peril.

While THE GREEN ZONE isn't terribly much more than a straight-up action flick, it takes direct aim at our collective conscience by continually reminding us that America's rallying cry for the need to invade Iraq was at best questionable, and at worst dead wrong. In the opening act, the frustration is palpable as Miller's teams keep coming up empty in the search for weapons of mass destruction. Hindsight makes that frustration infinitely worse.

A forgettable climax hurts an otherwise great movie

[damoviecritic · 7/10 · 13 March 2010]

The Green Zone, the latest film by Bourne director Paul Greengrass, plunges the audience into a fairly gritty and realistic portrayal of the Iraq War. The film opens with Roy Miller, played by Matt Damon, an army officer whose unit is hunting for Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction in the year 2003. In the opening minutes, his unit once again turns up empty handed. The movie then shifts its focus Miller's encounter and pursuit of former Saddam general Al-Rawi and a conspiracy involving high ranking Pentagon official Clark Poundstone, played by Greg Kinnear.

More than anything, the marketing of Green Zone attempts to create a connection to the Bourne Movies, which is very misleading. Matt Damon isn't on the run from the government in the film, nor is he a super soldier. What ties the two films together is the presentation and directorial style of both. Both involve frantic, hand-held camera work, and star Matt Damon dealing with government corruption. Unlike the Bourne movies, Green Zone draws its inspiration from reality: you very much feel like the events portrayed could've actually happened.

The first two thirds of Green Zone are of very high quality. The film moves at a fast clip, drawing you in with its frenetic camera work, realistic dialogue and superb, understated acting. Its plot is complex and political without becoming confusing. It's such a strong first portion than you find yourself wondering if the climax can match it. And in fact it can't. The final act of the film quickly devolves into a mildly entertaining action movie, the careful plotting that made the rest of the movie so good is quickly discarded for spontaneous revelations and character decisions that lack weight. The climax of film, unlike the Bourne Supremacy, is completely forgettable. In the end, The Green Zone is an entertaining popcorn movie that further highlights the directorial strength of Paul Greengrass. B-

War's First Casualty

[jzappa · 7/10 · 14 June 2010]

Green Zone sees an American war from the perspective that we're not the champions, not the badasses, but the rubes. Its understanding is that Iraq's fictitious "weapons of mass destruction" weren't there, that neocons within the administration falsified them, lied about them, were prepared to kill to conceal their ruse. That's definitely one more feature of the emerging account that's increasingly surfaced about Iraq, the, um, stunning awakening that we went to war under hollow pretenses. This is a thriller that presents characters and scenarios that have candid true-life analogies, but it is a thriller. Its director made the second and third Bourne films, and shoulders his formula to Baghdad, starring Matt Damon as a relentless action hero.

However this thriller isn't just a thriller. It has a bottom line to defend: Pivotal disregards at the beginning rendered a capable and efficient victory unfeasible, and turned Bush's "Mission Accomplished" photo-op into a monumental misconception. At the heart of the plot is the U.S.'s crucial mistake in the field, which was to fire the Iraqi army and leave them in limbo with their weapons. The Iraqi army had no particular adoration for Saddam and might have had a beneficial, balancing impact. Rather, they were rendered jobless, estranged, armed.

Damon, playing Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, is at the beginning commanding a sweep on a believed WMD storage site. Nothing there. Another sweep, meant to find weapons of chemical warfare, results in nada. Since some of these seizures yield fatalities, he starts to challenge the intelligence reports: He speaks out at a briefing, and sort of remarkably finds himself in confrontation with a U.S. intelligence agent named Poundstone, played by Greg Kinnear, completely persuasive as always. Of course he's disciplined with the same old platitudes, told to carry out his orders, but is overheard by Brown, a burly, seasoned CIA man, a Middle East long-timer. Soon he's relaying his concerns to Brown.

The CIA, as in real life, has no information to corroborate the WMD allegations, is removed from the discourse, and Poundstone's not only the engineer of the neocon fabrications, but their hatchet man, with even a military group responsible just to him. Miller also meets a New York newspaperwoman (Amy Ryan, whose versatility I find amazing whenever I watch her after seeing her in something else before), whose reports about a classified Iraqi informant have accredited the WMD propaganda. From her, he finds that Bath Party Gen. Al Rawi met with Poundstone in Jordan, yet, contrary to the reference Poundstone pointed out, plainly told him Saddam had no WMDs. So the bad intel was manufactured to rationalize the war the neocons wanted. Also a considerable leg up for Miller is Freddy, a local who begrudgingly risks his life to be that, functioning as a translator and providing the film's most essential bit of dialogue.

Have I made the storyline seem complicated? Paul Greengrass and screenwriter Brian Helgeland unfold it with definite simplicity. Character reduction and pigeonholing equal a thicket of deception accessible to foreign policy lay people. I guess that's fine. I mean, if we look at seminal films portraying true accounts of war's immediate experience, we're not watching good vs. evil. We're watching everyone being corrupted by the obligatory nature of killing, witnessing so many being killed, and the bankruptcy of policy that leads to millions of souls being sent to do that. In a way, distilling it into a thriller plot, a clear-cut hero, a clear-cut villain, as well as to bring it to the screen with such a naturalistic approach, seems to trivialize how war's always enticing to young men who know nothing of it first-hand, how their blood earns glory for those who continue not to. There are no unscathed soldiers in war.

Nevertheless, Green Zone doesn't trivialize the injustice being done to millions of people over there right now. It puts us right in their faces. Damon's Miller's not just the movie's hero because he runs, jumps, shoots, kills, but because he inherently understands that blind faith will get him and his men killed. He's the voice of protest when it's needed most, when the gushing of "fife and drum," parroted by the media and the pulpit, is demanding him and his men conform, keep step, comply in silence with the sovereign word of command. The action is captured with tons of quick cuts flanked by hand-held shots. Despite all our assumptions that it'd be like another Bourne film, it features no action sequences that are a hundred-to-one realistically. When we see a chase that couldn't happen in the real world, we automatically become conscious of the visual effects. When they could happen, we're consistently conscious of the story.

This movie has been on the inevitable hit list of those continuing to rationalize the fabricated intelligence we accepted as a justification to raid Iraq. Indeed, truth tends to be war's first casualty. Yes, the film too is fiction, uses implausible long-shots and implausibly puts one man in the middle of all the action. It is a thriller, not a documentary. But the facts ever present and the essence of the neocon injustices have by now been made very evident.