Green Zone (2010)

During the 2003 US led invasion in Iraq, Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller and his squad were given missions to investigate for Weapons of Mass Destruction in suspected places provided by US intelligence. When carrying out his missions, he realize that every missions he was given, the suspected storehouse for Weapons of Mass Destruction appeared to be empty. He began to questions the reliability of the sources, and soon learn of a conspiracy going on within the government. The movie was inspired from the non-fiction 2006 book Imperial Life in the Emerald City by journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran which documented life in Green Zone, Baghdad. Directed by Paul Greengrass who also directed Bourne Supremacy and Bourne Ultimatum which also starred Matt Damon, this movie stars Matt Damon as Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, Amy Ryan as the foreign correspondent for Wall Street Journal, Lawrie Dayne, Brendan Gleeson as the CIA Baghdad bureau chief, Martin Brown, Greg Kinnear as Pentagon Special Intelligence, Clark Poundstone, Yigal Naor as the Iraqi General Al-Rawi and Khalid Abdalla as an Iraqi civilian "Freddy".

This movie is less of an action flick or even a war movie, but it's primary focus is really about finding out what's going on behind this war, and particularly reminding us about the controversies behind the US led invasion in Iraq back in 2003. The goal of the invasion was to disarm Iraq under Saddam Hussien's rule and their Weapons of Mass Destruction. This movie pretty much retells the events that goes on Iraq during that time with fictitious names of Matt Damon's character arc representing the military failure to find any WMD in Iraq, Lawrie Dayne representing the press in search for the truth, the US informant "Magellan" based on real life informant "Curveball" and we have the divided government intelligence represented by Martin Brown and Clark Poundstone. So, once you fit the characters and their stories in place, you pretty much get the story behind the Iraq war in 2003. So, in the end, it felt like the movie is trying to preach than it does in trying to give us an action flick or a war movie.

The war scenes were not all that special, since it wasn't the primary focus of the film. They were not only short but you've got a feeling that the American soldiers already have the upper hand in most of the time. Even when you have Miller by himself, he pretty much become 'Jason Bourne'. The way the war and action scenes were handled was pretty much recycling what they've done in other movies, and just to keep the "action" and some adrenaline going. However, the dialogue and the lines took the stage in this film. The dialogue was what that really drive the story. They were all written very good, definitely better than the effort put into the action scenes.

The characters were secured in their roles in the story. Each definitely played a big part of the story. Apart from Miller and Freddy's character, the rest really doesn't have much character development. Miller loses his loyalty to his government and Freddy becomes more than just your Iraqi civilian. The rest was the same from their introduction to their end. Overall, the characters were written very nicely. But when it comes to the actors portraying their characters, many of them I feel were very two-dimensional. They were all shape into their roles for the story and the actors just execute them. Among all the actors, I feel that 'Freddy' is the most interesting one and Khalid Abdalla played out his character very well, from his confusions about the activity of the American soldier, his emotion and his heart for his people and his country as well as responding to situation that requires him making a big decision.

Matt Damon's character however fall short among the other actors, his character was pretty much two dimensional and pretty much "goal-orientated". His mind was from "I need to complete my mission" to "I want answers from what's going on" and finally "I need to get the truth out." If you ever played a single player first person shooter game, you would realize Miller acts precisely like that. He's just there to complete his objectives. Another disappointed with Miller's character was that he reminded me too much of Jason Bourne. I think this is really because of Matt Damon who played him and previously as Jason Bourne and Paul Greengrass directing this film who also directed the recent two Bourne films. Even their story arc is essentially the same; the government is hiding something from Matt Damon's character and he goes out finding the truth. I'm really disappointed they could not make his character different from one another apart from their name and what they wear.

The special and visual effects in the movie were pretty much used as a tool to make the environment as real as possible. From creating the feel of the bombing of Baghdad in the beginning of the film to the CG destroyed buildings and statues around to the exploded helicopter. The special effect was impressive, but not all that eye popping or overuse. The camera work of the film can be annoying at times, because it's just not steady. But it is pretty much use to capture the intensity of the scenes. So expect action scenes to be really really really shaky and dialogue scenes having less shake. Annoying and possible dizzy if you watch it in the cinema.

Overall, the film is entertaining but not all that special. Unless you're going to consider the message of the film, there's really not much to like...or even dislike. I would give 4.5 out of 10 Book with Al-Rawi's safehouse address.