Green Zone is the latest film from Paul Greengrass, director of the last two Bourne films, and also stars Matt Damon as Chief Warrent Roy Miller. Set in 2003 during the time in Iraq when the US was searching for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Green Zone is a conspiracy war film. Troops continue to be sent to various sites throughout Irag searching for WMD from what they have been told is reliable intel but at every site they come up cold. Roy Miller knows this and begins to ask questions. Pretty soon he takes matters into his own hands to unveil the truth behind the operation.
Green Zone is definitely a political film and an anti-war film at that. It covers one of what many seem to have considered the greatest blunder for a war that America has initiated. And that being said, as a war film it is definitely filled with action. Of course it is also what most war films are not, a conspiracy film. The acting is superb and it is gripping to the point where we want to know how exactly its going to turn out, though it is somewhat predictable. But it really is a bash on the US government for the time in Iraq.
The biggest flaw of this film though is its feel. This is Bourne meets Iraq. We've got Matt Damon, who was Jason Bourne, now an army chief. We have Paul Greengrass who seems to only have one style of filmmaking. The Bourne films also had better material to work with. Not that this is an awful story, it just doesn't work on the same gripping level that Bourne did. What is was able to do, though, was openly question the government, proof that really almost anything can be produced into a film, despite what the voice may say.
The film had an evident message against the war that happened, openly stating that the US only entered Iraq to get Sadam out of power, and verifying false intel to justify their actions. But as one Iraqi character who we come to know throughout the film puts it, "You have no right to decide what happens here." I think he has a point. Why must the United States exercise the right to power by taking over the governments of other countries?
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