Why So Blu?

Green Zone is Red Hot

Let me begin by extinguishing the haste of all those who said this is another Bourne movie, just set in Iraq.  BZZZT.  Sorry, thanks for playing.  We’ve got some great parting gifts for you.  However, I can see how one would deduce such a theory based on the misleading trailer, but we’ll get to the nitty-gritty in a second.  Green Zone reunites the former Bourne tag-team of director Paul Greengrass and actor Matt Damon.  Also along for the ride is The Kite Runner’s Khalid Abdalla and former Talk Soup host Greg Kinnear who has also worked alongside Damon back in the 2003 comedy Stuck on You.

The phrase ‘Green Zone’ refers to an area of Baghdad, Iraq that roughly covers 4 square miles.  If you haven’t been in a coma during the previous decade and have watched the news at least once during that time, then you would have heard the military-designated label before.  The Green Zone has been a hotbed of violence and ethnic unrest amongst the Kurds, Sunnis, and Baath Mulsims.  The film does a good job to relay this sense of conflict as it takes place somewhere between the initial ‘shock and awe’ strike and the capture of Saddam Hussein. 

Matt Damon plays Chief Warrant Officer Miller who leads his band of very capable grunts from mission to mission.  Each time they are sent out to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD’s) and each time they come up empty-handed.  They do their job and follow their intel to a ‘T’, yet a pattern is starting to develop and Miller is at wits’ end with the goose chase.  Greg Kinnear assumes the role of Clark Poundstone, a government intelligence specialist whose shady operations and questionable practices cause Miller to raise an eyebrow and do some digging on his own.

The film wastes no time drawing the audience in as it gets right at it from the opening sequence.  Even during scenes when the action relaxes, the story maintains intrigue as the United States government is working against itself.  As I mentioned at the beginning, this is not a Bourne copy.  Damon’s character is no super soldier and does not take out swarms of the enemy while dodging bullets through crazy chase scenes.  He is a very tuned-in soldier and admirable leader who wants to do the right thing by protecting his men, his country, and the new Iraq, all the while seeking answers to the otherwise cloudy and fading truths that Poundstone provides.  The Iraqi political landscape serves as nothing more than a chessboard of American and Iraqi pawns for certain members of the U.S. government such as Kinnear’s character.  Add the fact that the media is in the government’s pocket and you’ve got yourself one big case of conspiracy. 

Never was there a moment where my attention waned in this film’s 1-hour, 55-minute delivery.  Damon is awesome and Kinnear is the suit-and-tie pencil-pusher who does his best to prove that the pen is mightier than the sword.  Abdalla, on the other hand, represents the locals and drives his point home that the outsiders do not necessarily know what’s best for Iraq and its people.  Well done, Mr. Greengrass.  Thank you for bringing a great film to an otherwise barren landscape thus far in 2010.