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Green Zone (R)
In a chase like this, baby he was Bourne to run.
Journalist Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan, left) questions Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) in thriller, "Green Zone." (Jasin Boland/Courtesy Universal Pictures/MCT)
3/11/2010
Green Zone isn't an Iraq war movie in the same sense that the Oscar winner The Hurt Locker is. It doesn't delve into the psychological makeup of soldiers or examine why they do the things they're called upon to do. Instead, it's an action thriller set in Iraq, because that's the best place to string together a contemporary story about government conspiracy, soulless bureaucrats, brave military men bold enough to buck the system, reporters who need to check their sources once in a while and chases through burned-out rubble.
The film was inspired by the nonfiction bestseller Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside the Green Zone by former Washington Post Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran, who chronicled the mistakes made during the first year of the U.S. occupation and condemned Bush administration bureaucrats for isolating themselves from the Iraqi people. Green Zone focuses less on life in the actual Green Zone than on the hunt for weapons of mass destruction. If you have been keeping up with not-so current events, you know how that turned out, so nothing that happens in the movie comes as much of a surprise.
Nonetheless, U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon in stoic action-hero mode) is puzzled when his unit can't turn up any WMDs. When he tries to tell his superiors the intelligence is bad, they ignore him, mostly at the behest of the Paul Bremer-ish Chief Foreign Officer Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear), who has reasons for needing the WMD search to continue.
Also popping up in the mix are a skeptical CIA agent (Brendan Gleeson); a Judith Miller-ish reporter (Amy Ryan) who prints, without questioning, everything the administration feeds, and an Iraqi citizen (Khalid Abdalla) who helps Miller and keeps declaring how much he loves his country. (The Americans, on the other hand, are more prone to saying such things as ``Democracy is messy.'') Prepare to hear derisive laughter when the Green Zoners watch the news footage of George Bush declaring ``Mission accomplished.'' If nothing else, the film allows everyone to participate in the joys of 20/20 hindsight.
But really, Green Zone is just an excuse for director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum, The Bourne Supremacy, United 93) to haul out his jittery hand-held camera as Miller and Co. sprint through the streets and buildings of Baghdad in pursuit of one villain or another. Not all chases are created equal: The film opens with a chaotic flourish as Miller and his unit prepare to burst into a warehouse allegedly hiding weapons, but the dimly lit final action setpiece goes on so long you feel exhausted when it's finally over, ending in precisely the way you knew it would. Iraq can provide thought-provoking material for filmmakers. In this case, it's just a good place to run.
Cast: Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Brendan Gleeson, Amy Ryan, Khalid Abdalla, Jason Isaacs.
Director: Paul Greengrass.
Screenwriters: Brian Helgeland.
Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Lloyd Levin, Paul Greengrass.
A Universal release. Running time: 115 minutes. Violence, language. Playing at area theaters.
