Green Zone

Director: Paul Greengrass
Cast: Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Brendan Gleeson, Amy Ryan and Jason Isaacs
Releasing in cinemas: 11 March 2010
Rated: M

Bourne to fight

The team behind the most recent Bourne films – director Paul Greengrass and star Matt Damon – have teamed up again for Green Zone, a fictionalised version of the fruitless search of WMD (‘weapons of mass destruction’) in Iraq following the 2003 invasion of that country. As with the Bourne films, the pair get a lot right here and make some solid points, even if there may be a few quibbles.

The credits (rather obliquely) say that the film is “inspired by” – but note, not “based on” or “adapted from” – Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s non-fiction book Imperial Life in the Emerald City, which charted the growth of insurgency in Iraq after the fall of Sadaam Hussein. Screenwriter Brian Helgeland has fashioned fictional characters to populate the ‘real-life’ situation of Iraq circa 2003. The key points from the book – the hunt for non-existent WMDs, the flawed basis for the invasion, the dismantling of Iraq’s political infrastructure and the rise of insurgency – are however effectively conveyed via this fictional framework.

Chief WO Roy Miller (Matt Damon) essentially provides the audience’s ‘eyes and ears’ through which the story unfolds. His unit is on the ground in Iraq very soon after the initial invasion. Miller and his team have to “hit” suspected WMD sites around Baghdad in the search for the infamous weapons. Doing so places them at great risk; a risk which begins to appear unjustified as site after site turns out to be a bust. Then quite by chance Miller, with the help of a local known as Freddy (Khalid Abdalla), stumbles upon a meeting involving high-ranking Iraqi general Al-Rawi (Igal Naor). Although Al-Rawi slips away, the capture of some of the participants is enough to bring Miller to the notice of the CIA’s Baghdad chief Gordon Brown (Brendan Gleeson). It also brings him to the notice of Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear), a special intelligence operative who’s not keen to share information with the CIA. Meanwhile, journalist Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan) is pressing Poundstone to release more information about WMD and in particular, a shadowy source known as “Magellan”.

Although it sounds like there’s a lot of political intrigue going on here (and in a sense, there is), you can’t accuse Green Zone of being dull. The action starts from basically the first frame and barely lets up during its 115 minutes running time. As we know, Greengrass certainly has a knack for the kind of high-octane but nonetheless believable action that was the hallmark of the Bourne films (his sometimes heavy use of hand-held cameras notwithstanding). Here, he takes things to a new level with pulse-pounding action sequences that really deliver an adrenaline hit.

I guess there may be an argument that he actually delivers a bit too much action here, and certainly the film’s climactic chase to find Al-Rawi goes on a tad too long, but I was riveted most of the time.

What’s most impressive about Green Zone however is that it manages to deliver its messages despite the heavy emphasis on action. There’s a great economy in the storytelling that’s quite refreshing. In a few key scenes, Helgeland and Greengrass manage to explain the ‘bottom line’ issues with considerable clarity. Perhaps things are rather black-and-white at times, but the ideas are nonetheless conveyed.

Special mention should be made of the brilliant depiction of post-war Baghdad in the film. The film was shot in Spain and Morocco and the work of the production design and visual effects teams to transform the locations into the devastated city is nothing short of amazing.

Matt Damon essentially reprises his Jason Bourne performances here are the few-words-much-action Miller. He certainly excels in the action scenes, and is strong enough in the balance of the film to hold it together. The shining lights here however are in the supporting roles; notably Khalid Abdalla as the confused Freddy; Brendan Gleeson (his odd trans-Atlantic accent notwithstanding) as the CIA chief; Amy Ryan as the compromised journo and Greg Kinnear as the gung-ho spook.

With several Iraq war films having been released or on the slate, Green Zone is certainly up there with the best of them. It makes a rather nice counterpoint to the more restrained but nonetheless brilliant The Hurt Locker – and it certainly doesn’t suffer in the comparison.

David Edwards