Review of Green Zone (2010) by Nonya B — 08 May 2012

This is good film for folks who found The Hurt Locker to be a little too emo. Green Zone is still about one soldier's struggle, but Captain Roy Miller is more of a straight-shooter than a bomb expert with bad acne. He calls bullshit on his superiors for putting he and his men in harm's way over faulty intelligence, and when they ignore him, he takes matters into his own hands, like a proper action hero. No WMDs = no reason to go to war, and there is a pleasant unassuming honesty to the way the movie pounds us over the head with this notion.

Green Zone uses a matter-of-fact premise and involving, close-up storytelling to great effect. Since this is an action movie overlaid against the initial invasion of Iraq, concerning the disheartening search for biological weapons, the film carries an ere of gravity that elevates it above other Iraq War films. Every character in the film represents a different take on the conflict, and while we rarely travel beyond the lives of these few people, the script is not indifferent to the institutions they represent.

Take Greg Kinear's character, Poundstone, a slimy neo-con asshole who throws around party lines like "Democracy is messy!", "The boys in DC aren't going to like this!" and "You picked the wrong side!" He's a self-entitled political prettyboy in a suit and tie who wields his power with little regard for the hundreds of thousands of lives he's helping to destroy.

Opposing him is the Green Zone's man in the Intelligence Community, Martin (Brendon Gleeson), perhaps the only man in the CIA who doesn't feel obligated to bend over and take it from his own government. He warns Poundstone that sweeping the Iraqi military aside is a very bad idea because of the civil war they are keeping at bay. Their conflict nicely highlights the failure of unity, and general blame-game, that surfaced as everything began to fall apart after "Mission Accomplished". Watch these men's faces while they observe the torture of an Iraqi prisoner.

And of course you have the media, scathingly represented by Amy Ryan, who's face is constipated by an unspoken guilt. Her presence seems superfluous at first, until we learn how she served as a willing conduit for the once-overing of America.

It was fun to see Miller confront these characters off-and-on in an increasingly righteous manner as he worked his way to the truth. Their stuffiness over the gravity of the situation is almost palpable, and he loses it with pointed frustration on several occasions. "This is the reason we went to war! The reasons we go to war always matter. They are the only thing that matters! What happens the next time we need someone to trust us?!".

There is a nice ensemble cast of Muslim characters too, particularly General Al Rawi, who holds the key but is head of the Iraqi army and might as well be on the moon. Miller's quest to confront this man is the main thrust of the film. He is assisted by my favorite character, an angry civilian who calls himself "Freddy" and whose presence is integral to the credibility of Helgeland's screenplay; he represents the voice of the people Miller and his army are apparently there to help. "I come to talk to you and you shove my face in the dirt. What are you doing here? Digging holes? Do you actually think you can do stuff in my city with people standing around watching and no one will know? I am trying to help you. All of those things you want for my country? I want them more.".

And of course there is the dickish side of the military industrial complex, represented by a crooked Special Forces sergeant who answers directly to Poundstone. This man poses the greatest hurdle to Miller's journey, not the Iraqis, and seeks to bungle his mission at ever turn. Their chase scene toward the end of the film, in which both men pursue the same target through the back alleys of a city while urban warfare erupts around them, brings the forward thrust of the film to a poignant head.

Green Zone was persecuted for having too much action and too much shaky-cam. There are neither here. The violence is quick and pertinent, and for a film essentially about the military these scenes follow protocol to the letter. Perhaps a big-screen viewing was too much for some people. I had the same problem with Avatar; for all its billions of dollars spent on computer effects, it was just one big grainy blur until I watched it a second time on television.

So I was surprised to find the camera-work in Green Zone quite steady and watchable, but then, I viewed it on my computer, not blown up and pixelated on a 40-foot screen. The cinematography is inspired and sensitive to the history and cultural fervor of the Mesopotamian river-valley. The all-business American characters stroll casually among the ruins of bombed-out buildings and sculptures thousands of years old; Just another day on the battlefield. There is a great sequence early in the film where Miller and his squad show up to a suspected WMD site to find an avalanche of looters pouring down a crowded street. The 101st are pinned down by a sniper and can't proceed. He takes command of the situation, puts the men in their places and solves the problem flawlessly and admirably. It's a great introduction to his character and a great action scene, because it highlights what a strong leader can accomplish even in the midst of a throwaway occupation.

I do have some big aesthetic problems with the film. It drags at times, and its sense of outraged protest toward the war can be a little one-note. The military jargon, as accurate as it sounds, is way too overbearing at times, and I worry about viewers who won't be able to keep up almost as much as I worry about the sausage-fest Green Zone is marketed to. The aforementioned chase scene near the end of the film drags on way too long and isn't as suspenseful as it thinks it is. However, the intrigue and inherent anger of Green Zone more than make up for its occasional shallowness of character. Never before has the quote "old men start wars and young men fight them" been so true.

This movie is clumsy enough to deserve the critical beat-down it received, but sharp enough that everyone should see it anyway, if only to reaffirm and quantify what they already knew. They'll also get some action and suspense to boot. Don't slam it for having an agenda; every movie should have an agenda, especially one about the whitewashed genocide of an entire culture. Green Zone is angry that we live in an age where moral accountability can be bought and sold as expendable based on one's "perspective", when in fact it is the personal responsibility of every human being. I'm giving Green Zone an 80% with this fact in mind.