PRINTMovie Review: Green Zone
Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures
Matt Damon plays a U.S. Army weapons inspector who stumbles onto a coverup in the early days of the Iraq War.
March 13, 2010 | 10:20 a.m. CST
Although Green Zone’s premiere was fashionably late — filming wrapped in December 2008 — the new war thriller from the Bourne boys, Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum), makes the party worthwhile.
In the early days of the Iraq War, Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Damon) and his squad begin to question their sources after they come up empty on three consecutive missions to find weapons of mass destruction. Miller confronts Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear), a greasy Bush-appointed defense intelligence agent, only to be told just to do his job. After a Google search leads Miller to a journalist who reports “Magellan” as the main source of the erroneous intel, he is forced to go into full detective mode to find out who “Magellan” is. Mix in a few corrupt special force troops trying to halt his search and a pretty tricky twist at the end, and you have yourself an interesting re-imagining of the WMD debacle of the early 2000s.
Related LinksOne of the movie’s letdowns is the barf bag-worthy action scenes; the cinematography is as shaky as a Humvee ride down an Iraqi street. There are a few bursts of corny and clichéd one-liners from Miller as well, such as, “Get your f---ing game face on.”
The film lags at some parts, but it makes its point. Miller’s visits to the Green Zone — Baghdad’s International Zone, the center of the transitional government — are contrasted with Poundstone’s quarters, which resemble a luxury resort more than a government compound. It’s sickening to know that soldiers are dying for their country while high-ranking officials are lounging poolside, eating Domino’s pizza and drinking beer.
If Call of Duty is your thing and you enjoyed the Bourne series — think juicy government corruption mixed with Sherlock Holmes and filled with explosions and gunfire — you’ll thoroughly enjoy Green Zone.
Vox Rating:
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