Review of Green Zone (2010) by Halfwelshman — 29 Feb 2012

Green Zone makes for an intermittently entertaining conspiracy-based war film. Like all of Paul Greengrass's work, it looks great, the audience is dragged right into the heart of the action, and the hellish images of war-torn Iraq are quite effective.

The cast's performances are relatively decent, but by no means exceptional. The only one who really stands out is Khalid Abdalla, who plays "Freddie", an Iraqi ex-soldier and amputee who helps Chief Miller (Damon) to unravel the mystery as to why intelligence on WMD is so unreliable, and why the US went to war in the first place.

Abdalla's performance is head-and-shoulders above the rest of the cast - it's complex, emotional and moving. Where Green Zone fails is in its writing, and in the fact that for a political thriller, it has a surprising lack of thrills.

While Brian Helgeland's screenplay is perfectly reasonable on face value, it simply isn't brave or clever enough. Instead of having the courage to point the finger of blame for the Iraq War at the real culprits, Helgeland instead chooses to substitute real-world villains with Hollywood creations (Greg Kinnear's morally dubious Pentagon man and Jason Isaacs' brutal handlebar-moustached spec ops commander).

While I understand the need for dramatic licence to make a film work as a piece of entertainment (it is not, after all, an informative documentary) I don't understand how Kinnear and Issacs' characters turned out so dull.

The real masterminds behind the Iraq war, the politicians that duped us all into thinking there was some sort of justification behind invading Iraq are far more interesting characters than these screen creations, and ultimately far more evil.

If only Greengrass and Helgeland had the courage to say something really divisive about the Iraq War, rather than just re-affirming what we already know, that the WMD intelligence was made up, a convenient excuse for toppling an oppressive dictatorship.

Even with this unremarkable underlying message, the film could have still stood out if had a decent plot, something to rival the truly great Hollywood conspiracy thrillers. Unfortunately, the story is simple and linear, and you can see the only major twist a mile off.

Technically, Green Zone is flawless, and you really feel like you're going into Baghdad with the American soldiers, and living and fighting alongside them - Greengrass is a master of establishing, then maintaining a particular tone in his films.

The high-quality cast all do their job, but the only one to really stand out is the excellent Khalid Abdalla, and the filmmakers' characterisation can come across as a little lazy. Greenzone's main problem is that it has not approached its highly controversial subject matter with enough commitment or bravery - nothing new is said, and it doesn't leave you thinking at the end, just non-plussed.

Paul Greengrass's latest film is competent but uninspired, diverting but not memorable - in short, nothing special. His Bourne films had far more to say about evil politicians, shady military operations and human rights infringement than Green Zone ever does.