Green Zone

The Green Zone, the new action/thriller by director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum), is an intelligent, fast-paced, and well-structured all-star thriller.  Greengrass began in British documentary television and has said that the mission of good storytelling is to bring order to a world filled with chaos and turbulence. This is exactly what Brian Helgeland’s script for The Green Zone manages to accomplish. Helgeland, who wrote the tight and suspenseful LA Confidential, uses the muddle of events that led to the invasion of Iraq, the disbanding of the Iraqi police force and the intrigue that was the misinformation of the WMD debate to create an entertaining series of adventures for U.S. Army Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon). Adding weight and authenticity to the imagined story is the credited book “Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone” by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, an eye opener of inspiration for Greengrass and Helgeland.

Miller has arrived in Iraq circa 2003 with a goal - find the WMD that justify the invasion. In the middle of his second unsuccessful mission, complete with deadly sniper fire and looting Iraqi civilians, it becomes clear that he has a problem  - where are all the weapons of mass destruction and why is he being handed bad information from his own leaders? Other soldiers want to let it go and return home. Played as a good soldier on a moral mission, Officer Miller (like Jason Bourne) seems to have no past and no obvious place to go home to. There are no family pictures to share, no time for socializing and nothing to distract him from the job at hand.

Pointing out the faulty intelligence at a military press conference, Miller draws the attention of an impressive group of allies and adversaries -; The civilian leader (Greg Kinnear, aptly named Poundstone) who is pushing the bogus WMD story, the CIA official who is also a WMD skeptic (played with relaxed doggedness by Brendan Gleeson), and a Wall Street Journal reporter named Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan) who is getting the sense she is being duped on the big story by Poundstone. Miller will risk his life and career to uncover the truth -; and to protect others from having to search through empty warehouses in hostile war zones.

The big break comes when Freddy (Khalid Abdalla ) an Iraqi civilian, sees a group of outlawed Baath Party leaders gathering for a clandestine meeting. At first punished by the American soldiers when he comes forward, he is given respect by Miller and agrees to lead them to the valuable targets. The shootout leads to one captured, the realization that they just missed Al Awry, one of the biggest targets of the Iraqi armed forces, and a painful confrontation with secret government soldiers determined to get between Miller and the truth.

The chaos and danger of working in a war zone is shot with realism and style by cinematographer Barry Ackroyd, (Hurt Locker).  The filmmakers recreate scenes in and around the Green Zone on locations in England, Spain and mostly Morroco, with the climactic shootout between American soldiers and Baath party leaders actually being shot in and around an old mill in East London’s Docklands. It all works; the set design, shooting style and post production effects seem to locate the story in the early days of the Iraq conflict.  The film also has a number of intimate and graceful hand-held scenes (a meeting between Miller and his CIA contacts at a luxury pool in the heart of Baghdad, a tense gathering to determine the fate of the ousted Baath party leaders, Miller and the journalist taking each other for a spin to learn more about the story they are both pursuing). The action scenes are shot in a very mobile and energetic way, following Miller’s team as they fight their way through a Baghdad traffic jam and Miller as he struggles alone through apartments and back streets of the city. The film climaxes with classically constructed chase sequences, aerial overviews, skillful crosscutting, and high technology surveillance from spy-wired helicopters.

The Green Zone is a well-written script that is plausible, suspenseful, and the action is executed professionally. It has topical themes that are recent enough to remember and connect with -;- going to war on WMD charges -; the betrayal of Iraqi leaders by the Bush Administration -; journalists fed disinformation, helping to build a case for war. A few years removed, the stories have a familiar ring -; but they also feel tamer, less controversial with time. But the issues are not why people will see the film. The Green Zone is a first rate action/thriller that does it’s genre proud.

                                    Thomas W. Campbell