CLICK HERE TO WATCH OUR INTERVIEW WITH MATT DAMON
Who?
Matt Damon (rebel), Greg Kinnear (rebel hater), Brendan Gleeson (rebel lover), Amy Ryan (The Wire)
What’s it about?
Directed by Paul Greengrass and starring Matt Damon (yes: Bourne reunited), Green Zone’s about a soldier called Roy Miller (Damon) who gets suspicious about being sent on pointless missions to try and find WMD in Iraq. Miller and his team are constantly being shot at on their missions that never yield any massive bombs, so he starts to suspect the WMD are imaginary and goes off-piste with CIA Baghdad bureau chief Martin Brown (Gleeson) to expose the American government. It’s based on the nonfiction book Imperial Life in the Emerald City by the journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran, which is highly critical of the American operations in Iraq.
What’s good about it?
Green Zone’s release coincides with the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry in the UK which, although aimed at the lies told by the British and not the American government, lends the film some poignancy. Whether or not there ever were WMD in Iraq is likely to be the defining issue of the war and Green Zone captures the moment when an American soldier started to suspect they might be being lied to by fat men in suits. Then, of course, you’ve got the Damon and Greengrass ultimate action combination which produced The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, so Green Zone is a supremely slick flick which doesn’t overdo the political dialogue and knows exactly when to blow up a car in a long and complicated action sequence.
What’s bad about it?
Imagine Jason Bourne, minus the psychological issues, doing his thing in Iraq and you’ve got a good picture of what Green Zone’s like. So there’s not too much imagination required there. But it’s because Damon and Greengrass are victims of their own success, not because they’re lazy. Particularly with Damon, who’s got such a recognisable face it’s easy to forget he’s playing a character and that it’s not actually him running around Iraq trying to save the world.
Verdict:
Hollywood is finally getting round to making good films about the Iraq War. The Hurt Locker went first, and now Green Zone is an immensely enjoyable portrayal of the grim reality that people are risking and losing their lives in Iraq every day because men in power with an over-inflated sense of self-importance thought they could get away with lying. Plus, it’s well exciting.
4/5
CLICK HERE TO WATCH OUR INTERVIEW WITH MATT DAMON