Green Zone
Matt Damon in Iraq drama Green Zone
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Tuesday, 09, Mar 2010 05:49
Directed by Paul Greengrass, out March 13th, in cinemas, starring Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Brendan Gleeson, Amy Ryan, Jason Isaacs, running time 114 mins.
What's it all about?
March 2003 and Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Damon) and his team have been tasked with finding the alleged WMD that sparked Western forces into invading Iraq. But with faulty intelligence leading the men from one dead end to the next, Miller works on the tip-off of a senior CIA officer (Gleeson) to follow the trail of deception behind the war.
Who's in it?
Matt Damon reunites with Paul Greengrass, director of two of the three Bourne films, while Oscar nominees Greg Kinnear and Amy Ryan star, along with Harry Potter villain Jason Isaacs and In Bruges veteran Brendan Gleeson.
As an example...
"All they're interested in is finding something they can hold up on CNN." - Clark Poundstone
"I thought we were all on the same side."- Roy Miller
"Don't be naïve." - Gordon Brown
"Did they know it was a live or did you just never bother to ask?" - Roy Miller
What the others say
"So vivid and convincingly realistic is the physical depiction of Baghdad in the early days of the American occupation that the introduction of trumped-up thriller elements feels like an unwanted intrusion." - Todd McCarthy, Variety
"The climax is as ludicrous as any Jack Bauer adventure, and Greengrass is always on shaky ground. Literally." - David Edelstein, New York Magazine
So is it any good?
Its marketing campaign has made no secret of the film's ties with the Jason Bourne franchise and with director Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon reuniting and a handicam-shot tale of one man against the system, it's not hard to see why. But 'Bourne in Iraq' this isn't.
While Greengrass' jittery and chaotic style makes even the simplest set piece a pulse-racing example of how to exhaust your audience's synapses, there's much less substance to the whole production than we've come to expect from the director working with his favoured leading man. Characterisation unfortunately takes a backseat early on, with the principals easily slotted into boxes marked "committed soldier", "reporter digging deep" and "government man with a secret". There's also some suspension of disbelief is required as we witness Miller's blatant disregard of the chain of command and skills of deduction that suggest a love of Conan Doyle.
Yet even with the thin, easily unravelled plot, it's still an expertly made and enjoyable detective story-cum-military drama. Keeping the story fast and frenetic leaves the audience little time to ask to many questions and there are also some involving and timely parallels with the subjects of the recent Iraq inquiry, such as US assumptions about Iraqi strength, a muddled exit strategy, public relations being treated with more importance than the aftermath of invasion.
The film's realistic grounding - it's based on Rajiv Chandrasekaran's book Imperial Life In The Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone - and our subsequent knowledge of the conflict means British viewers will hear "the WMD are in that building" and think "I bet they're not... " But despite its slightly hurried portrayal of a don't ask-don't tell approach to a foreign occupation, a strong lead performance from Damon and headspinning direction from a director at the top of his game means Green Zone is a timely and compelling action effort.
8/10
Lewis Bazley