Paul Greengrass is one of the most exciting filmmakers working today. He is one of those very rare directors that can straddle the line between populist entertainment and political film making. With past efforts, he tended to lean more heavily on one aspect while infusing it with the other. The Bourne films were entertaining while being moderately political, United 93 and Bloody Sunday were political while being moderately populist. With Green Zone, he blurs the line more than before. Here he tries to make a film that is both very political, and pure entertainment. The results aren't quite perfect, but they are an interesting step forward for a man who seems on the cusp of being one of the most important directors of his generation.Green Zone is a fictional spin on the way we got into the Iraq War. One might initially assume he is going for a purely political film here, but that notion is very quickly brushed aside. From the beginning, this thing is an action picture. The film opens with an explosion (many of them, actually), and ramps up the tension from there. Matt Damon stars as Miller, a soldier who has been assigned the duty of finding the elusive weapons of mass destruction. After coming up empty handed again and again, he starts to suspect that the Intel he is being given is fictitious. He sets out to find the source of the information, with the help of a local man named Freddy (Khalid Abdalla, who also appeared in United 93). Jumping from location to location, never sure who he can trust, Miller is racing against time to find what he needs to know before things get out of control in Iraq.
What Greengrass appears to have done is make a modern version of All the Presidents Men, and turn it into an action film. Miller jumps from lead to lead, clue to clue, trying to uncover a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of government. Where some might take umbrage is with the fact that this is a fictional account on a real story. None of these people actually exist, nor was there ever any conspiracy uncovered. For those who don't take kindly to speculative historical fiction, this might come across as smug finger pointing. For those who can enjoy that sort of thing, Greengrass infuses it with many great details and ideas. Personally, I don't think there was a grand conspiracy, but the film does give ample evidence to support the idea that information could have been knowingly falsified to get us to war. And at its heart, Green Zone isn't about the specific details, as much as it is about the bigger questions of why we go to war, and what ultimately justifies it.
What Greengrass appears to have done is make a modern version of All the Presidents Men, and turn it into an action film. Miller jumps from lead to lead, clue to clue, trying to uncover a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels of government. Where some might take umbrage is with the fact that this is a fictional account on a real story. None of these people actually exist, nor was there ever any conspiracy uncovered. For those who don't take kindly to speculative historical fiction, this might come across as smug finger pointing. For those who can enjoy that sort of thing, Greengrass infuses it with many great details and ideas. Personally, I don't think there was a grand conspiracy, but the film does give ample evidence to support the idea that information could have been knowingly falsified to get us to war. And at its heart, Green Zone isn't about the specific details, as much as it is about the bigger questions of why we go to war, and what ultimately justifies it.
It can't be left unmentioned that Greengrass brings his traditional documentary style camerawork to the film. I personally have no problems with this style, as it lends itself to creating a level of intimacy that more conventional camerawork doesn't. At the same time, though, I think he overindulged. There are a great many scenes where it is almost impossible to see what is going on, especially early on. Some shots go out of focus, others miss what is happening entirely. It can be frustrating. On the other hand, it helps the audience get into the mind of these soldiers who were the first to arrive in Iraq. They too are lost and confused, and the camera is a great facsimile of how overwhelming the experience for them was those first few days of war.
The film's one big flaw, sadly, is the characters. The style of film Greengrass usually makes requires a bit of detachment from the characters, much like you would have in an objective documentary. Here, though, it stops being detachment, and starts being stock characters. Everybody is a character type, not a character. As such, they are only vessels for exposition. I have not mentioned the fact that the film also starts such great actors as Amy Ryan, Greg Kinnear, and Brenden Gleason. That's because none leave any impact on the viewer. Even Damon as Miller is a bit of a nothing character. His righteousness never feels backed up by anything, and when he gets his big moment at the end where he claims that the reasons for going to war always matter, it feels less like a character and more like a screenwriter saying it. But there is one shining performance, that of the aforementioned Freddy (Khalid Abdalla). He is the heart of the film, and you actually care what happens with his story more than anyone else. Part of that is the film playing on our fears that this Iraqi trying to help the government will get screwed for doing the right thing, but most of it comes from a strong performance on Abdalla's part.
While it doesn't achieve the same levels of greatness that his best political (United 93) or pulp (The Bourne Ultimatum) films did, Green Zone is still an interesting step forward in his attempt to fully fuse the two types of films. Had a bit more work been given to the screenplay and characters, it might have been to that level. It's interesting to see that in the last year, Hollywood has finally started to figure out how to tell Iraq War stories. While this isn't quite up there with The Hurt Locker, it is certainly an entertaining alternative. Let's hope Hollywood continues to find new and interesting ways to mine this material.
