Green Zone is an action thriller about Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) and his team’s mission to find the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The WMD’s existence justified the American involvement in the country but no matter how hard they look, Miller can’t find any.
The film is said to be inspired by the book Imperial Life in The Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran but the storyline is all credited to Director Paul Greengrass, who developed the original script. Right from the opening sequences, Green Zone is full of action with frantic camera-work and sharp editing. This is expected, considering the director was also responsible for The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum.
General Al Rawi (Yigal Naor): Your government wanted to hear the lie Mr. Miller… they wanted Saddam out and they did exactly what they had to do… this is why you are here…
The plot comes straight out of a conspiracy theory. It makes you wonder whether Green Zone is a work of fiction or a documentary. It is nicely spun thriller that uses the politics of post-war Iraq as the background. It poses questions such as the source of the intelligence data with regards to Saddam’s WMD. In the movie, Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson), a veteran CIA operative, told Miller that there were no weapons and it was all a ruse to allow American troops to take over Iraq and install a puppet president.
Miller (Matt Damon): At least tell me how it happened. How does this happ… how does someone like you write something that’s not true? Tell me.
If I’m Matt Damon, I wouldn’t do another movie unless Greengrass directs it. Green Zone is well done and the cast did an excellent job with their parts. It is realistic and unpredictable. Plus there’s no shortage of action in this one. This is one of the great movies about the fake war, right next to The Hurt Locker.
