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Review: Green Zone
Posted by Patrick Sauriol on Friday, March 12, 2010
With ads showing Matt Damon running around with an automatic rifle, Green Zone appears to be a more military version of the last two Jason Bourne movies. The thing of it is, Green Zone has the elements of The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum we liked, including the often distracting shakeycam tendency Paul Greengrass likes to use, but it can't decide if it wants to go full tilt and be an all-out action movie or a political thriller. The result is that the picture ends up being neither.
It's 2003, a month after the U.S. has declared war on Iraq. Damon plays Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, a soldier who's got an important job to do with his men: find the WMD that Saddam had. Miller and his team have been running all over the country doing their jobs but coming up short. The intel they've been given as to where the WMD is supposed to be turns out to be wrong time and time again. When the chief voices his concerns over the faulty intel he's been given, Miller's superiors cut off his line of questioning, leaving it up to him to find out the answers.
Through Bloody Sunday and United 93, Greengrass has shown us that he's capable of making pictures that contain a message about politics on the global level. With his Bourne pictures, the filmmaker also has shown that he's able to make a rolling action ride without sacrificing story or characterization. But with Green Zone, it feels like a half-baked meal. You better pay attention to the screenplay (by Brian Helgeland) because even though you know how things turned out in Iraq finding the WMD, there's enough complexity to the way events unfold and the players playing their games in post-liberated Iraq that you can get lost. But just when Green Zone seems on the verge of becoming a political thriller it moves back to a straight forward action movie with gunfights and dusty car chases. There are two villains in the movie for Damon's character, one a merc/soldier (Jason Issacs, wearing a big handlebar moustache and an American accent) and the suit managing the rebuilding of Iraq (Greg Kinnear). Both get a decent level of screen time, both play obstacles in Miller's pursuit of the WMD answers but neither resolution to their villainy feels appropriate. You don't get the same sense of accomplishment when an enemy is defeated the way Jason Bourne took out his assassins or danced around the guys pulling the strings of the assasins. By the time you get to the end of Green Zone, it feels like you're been on a road that had a fork in it, yet Greengrass couldn't commit to choosing a path to travel. It's not a bad film, it just can't make up its mind as to what kind of film it wants to be.
Among the assets of the picture is a good performance and characterization of Freddy, a local Iraqi man who comes up to Miller with reliable information. Khalid Abdalla plays him as a living being and gives the audience a clear picture of what life is like for the average citizen that lives in Iraq and wants to see its return to normalcy.
Green Zone isn't going to do much for you if you are expecting to see a new Bourne movie, nor will its shakeycam motion make it an appealing choice to the audiences hoping for a drama. It's like riding in a humvee over hilly terrain: you know that you're getting a ride but when it's over and done it's good to be standing on level ground again.
Review Score: 55 / 100
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