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Green Zone (2009)

Director: Paul Greengrass

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21 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Thirty-five years after ‘Network’ and ‘All the President’s Men’, in which journalists told uncomfortable truths and defended democracy, ‘Green Zone’ makes military personnel do the noble work which craven reporters shirk. The only consolation is that the movie is inspired by a work of journalism, Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s ‘Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone’.

Set in Iraq in the months following the 2003 invasion, the film reunites the director and star of ‘The Bourne Supremacy’ and ‘The Bourne Ultimatum’, Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon; this time, however, we already know the details of the underhanded government action our hero confronts. Damon plays an army warrant officer whose WMD sorties keep coming up empty; unwilling to roll over, he’s soon embroiled in a turf war between the CIA and the Pentagon (personified by conscientious Brendan Gleeson and oleaginous Greg Kinnear) while attempting to wrangle a Ba’athist general (Igal Naor), a useful veteran (Said Faraj) and a useless embedded reporter (Amy Ryan) against a backdrop of more-or-less real events.

Greengrass’s approach to real-life disaster is far more simplified and pumped up here than it was in ‘United 93’ or ‘Bloody Sunday’, but there’s much to be said for his ‘Bourne in Baghdad’ approach. The action is robust, the politics simplified but strident, insisting that a wilfully under-prepped war worked against both US and Iraqi interests. By shifting focus from the naively doctrinaire civilians of Chandrasekaran’s book to street-level soldiers questioning authority, Greengrass concocts a formula with a fighting chance of dispelling the Curse of the Hollywood Iraq Movie. If a picture as conventionally accessible as ‘Green Zone’ tanks, that campaign is surely lost.

Author: Ben Walters

Time Out London Issue 2064: 11– 17 March, 2010

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User reviews of this film

Douglas said...

Posted on Mar 07 2011 15:50 There`s an apathy with people today. they either don`t care (as long as it`s not happening to them) are brainwashed or feel there`s nothing they can do.
Anyway, I wasn`t impressed with the politics of the film. Oh, the one good American soldier that realises now that it`s all wrong, tries to fix it, but doesn`t really, oh well. All pointless feeling guilty after the event film.
Evene the action didn`t grab me as much as the previous Bourne films. And `freddy` because we can`t be arsed to learn his real name since he`s foreign was a `make us feel better` joke.
We should all be ashamed as we watch this because it just doing what we have all done - Glossed over the reality of what`s going on today and one day it`ll come back to bite us hard.

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andrew said...

Posted on Apr 21 2010 06:43 oh well said helen. uh-duh like whatever....stop being critical cmon. this is america....geez....i cant wait to watch a good sit-com tonight and maybe ill do my nails....

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Unknown said...

Posted on Apr 20 2010 17:52 The comment you type in this box will appear on the website

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Helen said...

Posted on Apr 20 2010 17:51 Andrew stop being such a prick, just get over it man.

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Sutton said...

Posted on Apr 20 2010 13:07 A very good thriller, which keeps you gripped throughout. I thought Matt Damon and the other leads were excellent. I preferred the Hurt Locker, but this is still well worth seeing.

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ALFREDO said...

Posted on Apr 17 2010 21:01 YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT, ANDREW

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andrew said...

Posted on Apr 17 2010 19:45 not many kind of heroes...i would add.
as for leaving the US? yes its on my mind all the time, i dont think good things are coming for a country so misled and missinformed and without the ability to think very well or realize how corrupt we have become.

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andrew said...

Posted on Apr 17 2010 19:43 i think you are pretty naive to think the reason we are there is to spread democracy. we are supporting drag trading corrupt politicians over there for some kind of geoopolitical reasons that nobody explains very well, or even understands. as for the soldiers, many undoubtedly believe they are doing good work over there. others sound like ignorant sadists who enjoy killing, take a look at the collateral murder video and you might get an idea.

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padi2005 said...

Posted on Apr 16 2010 19:43 ANDREW as you sit on your free a** and complain about "murder" there's men and women out there from not only the US but other countries fighting and also helping people to have a safer country for future generations. The movie is entertainment "dude" the war is real and you are one lucky person to be able to twist a MOVIE into something political and vocalize your anti-war oppinion. I have a suggestion MOVE out of the US find yourself a better country to whine in.

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ALFREDO said...

Posted on Apr 06 2010 21:52 WELL, ANDREW, TO TELL YOU THE TRUTH, YOU ARE RIGHT BUT, HEY!, LOOK AT IT AS ENTERTAINMENT.

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andrew said...

Posted on Apr 06 2010 21:24 anything will be better then the repulsively homoerotic fantasy about heroic american soldiers which won oscars...im sure the pentagon was happy about that....meanwhile the murder continues. the u.s. is on a downward spiral from all this ignorance, i can hardly stand the place anymore

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Jion said...

Posted on Mar 23 2010 17:11 Hugely impressive action film from Paul Greengrass Not as tense (and probably won't be as memorable) as his much smaller 'Bloody Sunday' and 'United 93'.Stll,in action terms it's a way better than anything else out there at the moment.

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Evie said...

Posted on Mar 22 2010 18:47 Very enjoyable and plot focused action film with impressive locations and a compelling performance from Matt Damon.

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JB said...

Posted on Mar 20 2010 16:03 "AT LEAST IT'S IDEOLOGICAL. AS IT SHOULD BE."
Yeah, I love me some films that spout left-wing propagandistic lies. All for the greater good, of course. As it should be.

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craig said...

Posted on Mar 18 2010 02:27 This movie will certainly tank now that Iraq is making progress with successful elections and a developing political civil society. And who were the people who thought Saddam was disarmed in 2003? They didn't exist in any country's government then. Now eveyone who voted for John Kerry is pushing the "Big lie" revision. He was then part of the conspiracy. You can look up his speaches in 2002.

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