Green Zone
Director: Paul Greengrass
With: Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Brendan Gleeson, Yigal Naor, Khalid Abdalla, Amy Ryan, etc.
A fictional riff on how and why we got into the Iraq war, with the CIA coming off as the good guys, and one dedicated soldier, Miller (Damon), who wants to get to the bottom of the whole mess.
He is in a unit tasked with finding and clearing WMD sites in Iraq. Every site they enter is empty of these weapons, with no evidence they were ever there. Miller gets suspicious and starts asking questions. He is thwarted by Poundstone (Kinnear), a State Department official whose job is to support the Bush war and squelch dissent. He is opposed by Martin Brown (Gleeson), a CIA man who knows that there never were WMD and tries to help Miller in his search for answers.
Lawrie Dayne (Ryan) is a Wall Street Journal reporter who smells a rat. She tells Miller that the intelligence on WMD came from a dicey source, and that there may have been political reasons for the invasion. She is also wasted here, and I wish her character had more to do.
In a parallel story, an Iraqi general (Naor), is waiting for the US government to approach him and his former colleagues to assist in the fight against the remnants of Saddam’s die-hards, and to help form a new Iraqi government. He keeps moving because he has enemies among Saddam’s loyalists. Miller is seeking him because he may have information on the WMD.
Phew! That about gets it.
All these characters are fictional, and the situations made up. It is a kind of parallel universe view of the run-up and war in Iraq. I don’t think it illuminates much, and if the sad truth hasn’t changed any minds, this movie won’t.
What it is, is a non-stop war/action flick, with liberal politics. I guess that is okay. But, the ironic ending, no spoiler here, is supposed to create a feeling of futility and pessimism. It just came off as a cheap trick, to me.
What the heck. If you have already seen The Hurt Locker, and you crave more war action, here it is.
B-