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Director: Paul Greengrass Starring: Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear IMDB Matt Damon is Sgt Miller, he is the leader of a squad of US Army grunts who are on the hunt for WMD in Iraq right after the invasion. Of course he has been to multiple sites but turns up with nothing. After a heated briefing with his superiors the chief of staff managing CIA operations in Baghdad approaches him and asks Miller to contact him if he turns up with anything. Later, Miller and his squad are digging in the middle of the road and receive a tip that the head of the Iraqi Army is nearby, they raid the safehouse but the general flees. Interestingly the movie follows 2 plot lines after this, Miller starts working for the CIA in trying to capture the general while the Pentagon Special Intelligence Officer (Greg Kinnear) wants him dead. The CIA is also interested to find out who has been providing all the bad WMD intelligence to the Pentagon Special Intelligence. I thought this movie sucked. The action is well edited but it's not fun to watch and the ending to the final chase scene through Baghdad makes no goddamn sense. The movie likes to blame certain people (Kinnear's character) for the fiasco of no WMD in Iraq but is too chicken poo poo to point the finger higher at WH administration officials. For a good Iraq War movie go see The Hurt Locker. 1.5/5
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Mar 13, 2010 10:25
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Wow, so boring. Anyone with a passing interest in the fiasco already knows that there were no WMD to be found. So WTF is the point of a fictional account that arrives at the same conclusion years after the fact? The only tension comes from the driving soundtrack, and that loses efficacy real quick. I never knew Googling could be so goddamn "tense". Damon is another ROGUE AGENT who seems to answer to no one while commanding other troops on his mission of righteousness. And shakycam galore. gently caress this pointless movie. 2/5
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Mar 16, 2010 18:07
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The Green Zone effectively hangs a lampshade on one of the most important aspects of the invasion of Iraq that had yet to be dealt with in any great form in movies: we went to war under false pretenses, and we should be loving outraged with the people who duped us. I say "we", I'm an Irishman living in Ireland, but y'know. The royal we. Whatever. It's not just baseless grandstanding either, we're shown the reprecussions of the war; the utter terror of the garrish "shock and awe", the impossible position the US government placed the non-loyal Iraqis in, the disintegration of the Iraqi organ of state resulting in a breakdown of all vital utilities, the outrage of the people and the exasperation of the US ground troops as they are fed misinformation after misinformation and their advice is constantly ignored. Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass work well together. They know what to expect from each other and their views on what a movie should be are very copacetic. And they're huge liberals. Can you tell? I love the cast in this movie. Brendan Gleeson is one of my favourite actors, even if his accent breaks more often than a [clumsy analogy]. Greg Kinnear oozes as our Neocon figure of hate. Amy Ryan is ... okay, but her part feels at once incidental and critical to goings on. Giving her more screentime wouldn't have hurt. The Iraqi people, both civilian and militia, come off very well. Freddie our helpful one-legged native with no small hatred of the Republican Guard, is fun to watch, particularly as it's never that clear who he's trying to help. Damon could never play an everyman. in Departed, Jason Bourne, Loki in Dogma, he's at his best when he's got something distinguishing himself from the rest of us that he can use as a springboard for the crazy poo poo he does. Here he's a Chief Warrant Officer leading a crack team to track down WMDs. He runs into a problem, you may have heard about it. He's a fun guy to watch who never frustrates with lack of deftness, and Greengrass never has him do anything stupid for the sake of the plot. He's in a dangerous game and he knows it, but he also knows he's got people on his side, and that's a refreshing change for a Damon movie. There are some dumb moves though. Greg Kinnear ordering Delta Force to kill Damon because he's gone "off-reservation" and them hungrily agreeing? Come on. The final twist with Freddie is obvious quite a ways before it happens in the final chase-which-is-also-a-gunfight Greengrass has a distracting love of. Overall it's a very effective thriller; it's not based on fact, rather a book by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, but Damon and Greengrass accomplish their goal of making the viewer think about the false reasons behind the war and fostering a sense of outrage over the entire bullish, arrogant way the propaganda machine rolled around. The point it made over the firing of the Iraqi Army which turned them into dangerous outlaws in their own country, especially when there was a perfect oppurtunity to work together with the non-loyal elements in rebuilding the country is a very good one. I was so interested I went to a library and picked up a book, so that's something, eh? 5/5 Nilbop fucked around with this message at 14:22 on Mar 25, 2010 |
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Mar 25, 2010 14:18
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Went into the movie expecting Jason Bournesqe movie, left with the sour taste of silly contrived propaganda. Shaky cam again, when will directors realize that this adds nothing beyond nausea? Not a single character made me feel like I would miss them if they suddenly were shot dead at any point. 1/5
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Jul 25, 2010 03:18
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