Review of Green Zone (2010) by Carrie B — 27 Sep 2011

I don't quite know how to sum Green Zone up. It's not a bad movie by any means, but I don't think I could recommend it to everyone either. Green Zone marks the third collaboration of director Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon. The two of them are responsible for two of my favorite films, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. It's safe to say they know each other well. Greengrass has made his position on the 9/11 conspiracy crystal clear with United 93 and this film. He also did a great job at letting Damon take charge and drive this film home. He gave a strong performance, and that goes without saying Damon stepped right into his standard issue military boots, and everything from then on felt so authentic, that I believed he could really be in the military.

Damon was even surrounded by real-life soldiers, and he fit in to perfection. He plays U.S. Army Sergeant Miller, who after being sent on various dead end missions, decides to go against his orders and discover the truth as to what's really going on with the supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction that the U.S. went to war with Iraq for in the first place. That is already a bit of a touchy subject, and I think that's really where I could not connect with the film. I want to really like it a lot, but I just know that some people are actually going to believe the fictional story. So that's why I think that this movie is trying to make too bold of a statement for what it is, which is false.

Not to sound too negative though, because I did enjoy it. Admittedly, I felt like the film was too political at first. I just couldn't appreciate its strong anti-Iraqi War message. It's obviously propaganda, but my struggle was accepting that this was a fictional point of view. The reason why it was a struggle is because of how uncertain we, as American citizens, are in regards to what all is true, and what's false, in regards to the events of 9/11 and the War on Terror. Don't get me wrong. I'm in no way a supporter of the war or certain decisions that were made by Bush's administration, but I wouldn't be so quick to jump on the bandwagon and make accusations like this film seems to.

Considering the simple fact that Green Zone is a fictitious story, I opened my mind and enjoyed it for what it is. It's a bold political thriller that's not afraid to tell a controversial story, and towards the end it becomes basically an action flick with a long stretch of suspense in the dark, and bullets flying left and right. Green Zone is essentially a hybrid of Body of Lies and The Hurt Locker (if the focus was on Spec Ops, rather than EODs). It actually succeeds for the most part, but like many people's complaints about Avatar, the political message is so overwhelming that it's kind of hard to enjoy the film on any other level. I would still recommend giving it a look.

The Blu-ray has a top notch transfer, with reference audio. My biggest complaint are the typical murky dark scenes, which there are a lot of. I love film grain. It gives me a peace of mind that the people who worked on the disc didn't doctor it up to cater to those who have no idea what real film should look like. So needless to say, this movie looked fantastic to me on Blu-ray because it's loaded with grain. Funny thing is, when I first saw it at the theater, it was before I was as into film as I am now, so I too thought it looked pretty bad. Now that I have a better understanding, I get the whole gritty feel Grengrass intended. That doesn't take away from the fact that heavy grain hurts dark scenes.

So in this case, the nighttime scenes may look blurry to some, but there should really be no problem making out details. Now on a DVD, that would be another story, but on Blu-ray, I think they look fine. The sound is sure to rock a house or two. Sound effects are perfectly scattered throughout the battlefield when bullets are flying and bombs are going off. There's a helicopter crash in the third act that sums it all up quite well. The extras are nothing to write home about, but we do get a nice commentary that can be listened to like the average track, or watched as a Picture-in-Picture. There are also a couple of sub-10 minute featurettes that briefly adress Damon and Greengrass's connection to the subject matter, as well as a few soldiers talking about the experience being in the film, and acting alongside Matt Damon. I think most people would love Green Zone, but I happen to fall closer to the middle. I definitely recommend the Blu-ray though.