Review of Green Zone (2010) by Sham K — 02 Aug 2011

Iraq, 2003: Shock and Awe has come and gone. The Baath Party and Saddam Huessen are gone from power in the wake of the American led Invasion. Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) leads a U.S. Army Mobile Exploitation Team (MET) scouring Iraq for WMDs but is growing increasingly frusterated by the lack of success and Intelligeance that is clearly bogus. Joining with a CIA Officer (Brendan Gleeson) Miller learns of a Sunni General who could reveal the truth about WMDs and stop the brewing Insurgency before it begins...but Millers search for the truth puts him at odds with Poundstone (Greg Kinnear) a Pentagon Official with ties to the Sunni General and in charge of post-war reconstruction, and in the cross hairs of a Special Forces Unit led by Jason Isaacs, hunting down Baathist remnants.

Kick ass action thriller directed by Paul Greengrass who keeps the shaky cam to minimum. Solid acting from everyone involved, apparently most of the extras where veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan so that helped the tone of the film. Well a cocky prick Greg Kinnear is never depicted as evil, and well the premise of the film sounds like a conspiracy thriller set during the Iraq War its SPOILER more blamed on conflicting agendas, willful ignorance and incompetenance then any orginized conspiracy. Well the film caught a lot of flack the most contriversal thing it says is that A) there where no WMDs in Iraq (released 7 years after the Iraq War began its hard to argue that point) and B) that the Coalition Provisonal Authority was insulated from the realities on the ground and fucked up the post invasion phase opening the way for the Insurgency to take route. These are not controversal points. I will say this I like the end. Isaacs is trying to kill the Iraqi General, Damon is trying to "bring him in" to cut a deal...and the General is gunned down by "Freddie" (Khalid Abdalla) Damons Iraqi translator, a Shiite and veteran of the Iran-Iraq War intoning that the Americans have no right to determine Iraqs future (also nice was the irony, Damon is repeatidly told to do his job and not worry about the Intel, when going to cut a deal with the General Damon tells Freddie "Tonight I need you to just do your job"). Everyone comes off as exisitng in a moral grey zone which is nice rather then clear cut good and evil. Oh, and the battle at the end was pretty sweet. Recommended.