| 11 March 2010
Has Paul Greengrass’ “you are there/in your face/smash cuts” style of filmmaking run its course? It worked to great effect on “Bloody Sunday” and “United 93,” two films that placed the audience right in the middle of the action, turning them into witnesses of two tragic events: the violent 1972 clash between British soldiers and unarmed Irish protesters in Derry, Northern Ireland; and the heroic actions of the passengers of United Flight 93 during the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001. It’s a style that lent a great visceral effect to Greengrass’ two Bourne movies (“The Bourne Supremacy” and “The Bourne Ultimatum”): we felt every punch, every crash, every breathtaking chase by foot, moped or car.
Matt Damon plays Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, the official assigned to unearth Saddam’s mythical Weapons of Mass Destruction in the early days of the Iraq war. It’s a frustrating mission for Miller and his men: every site they visit turns up empty. Miller suspects that there is something wrong with the intelligence handed down by the Pentagon and like, every good Hollywood hero loyal to his men and beliefs, begins to ask his senior officials some rather tough questions.
Miller attracts the attention of CIA official Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson) who right off the bat volunteers information that Miller’s next site will also prove to be a dud. At the same time, Brown locks horns with Bush administration lackey Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear) over the dismantling of Iraq’s army.
While verifying Brown’s information, Miller receives a tip from a former Iraqi soldier named Freddy (Khallid Abdala, the only nuanced performance of the film) about a secret gathering of former Iraqi military officials. Miller and his team break into the meeting to discover that it was led by one of Saddam’s top generals, a man who could very well tell him the truth about the WMDs location. Needless to say, a chase against time soon follows as Miller’s and Poundstone’s men try to get their hands on this general.
Throw into the mix a Wall Street Journal reporter who was fed and published misinformation about the whole WMD mess by Poundstone (in real life, that reporter was Judith Miller of the New York Times) and you could have had a thriller worthy of John LeCarre. Unfortunately, neither Greengrass nor Helgeland are interested in those gray areas inhabited by LeCarre’s characters and more in the black and white aspects of American foreign policy.
The first hour of “Green Zone” has that sense of immediacy Greengrass evoked so well in his first four films. We feel Miller’s frustration as he tries to figure out what’s going on and realizes that the left hand ain’t quite sure what the right hand is doing. But once the film identifies, in true Hollywood fashion, who the good and bad guys are, “Green Zone” becomes another indistinguishable action film. Its final scene is as egregious as the final shot of “The Ghost Writer.” Without giving much away, it’s wish-fulfillment at its worst.
Knowing the actual history of deceit and misinformation surrounding this first stage of the Iraq war doesn’t help matters either. For a full, more nuanced, and actually thrilling, look at the Iraq fiasco, I highly recommend Charles Ferguson’s 2007 documentary “No End in Sight.” That film makes this one a completely unnecessary exercise in mythmaking.
CAFE'S RATING SYSTEM:
FOUR SHOTS: The perfect brew
THREE SHOTS: A decent brew
TWO SHOTS: A weak brew
ONE SHOT: Tastes like tar
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