Green Zone (2010)

While it’s hard to classify Green Zone as a great movie, it is, however a courageous one in the way it showcases the coalition’s weak and incompetent case for invading Iraq in search of WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) that we now know never existed and making it the perfect subject-matter for director Paul Greengrass how off the back of Bourne franchise.

The situation on the ground was a mess of conflicting information, inefficient command structures and barely functioning equipment, just what you need when producing a chaotic search for deadly weapons in a city filled with people that don’t trust you or worse, want you dead, the perfect combination of things that suited the chaotic and fast-paced shooting style that was popular around the early 10’s and lead to some well-handled action sequences.

Greengrass and Damon had formed a strong working relationship in the Bourne movies, however, going in I found his casting an odd choice in the central role but, I was soon won over by his very flawed and stubborn portrayal of a soldier trying to do his job in these extremely difficult of circumstances, however, its the supporting cast that makes the movie, with the likes of Brendan Gleeson, Jason Isaacs and Greg Kinnear popping up to provide memorable sequences.

There are, however, some problems with the film: the unrelenting noise and jumping from one action sequence to the next without much time for reflection makes the characterization difficult but by far the most distracting problem with the film was the editing style. As mentioned earlier, it was very popular at the time to combine shaky cam with rapid edits when filming the action, which very well might have suited the situation on the ground, however, now it seems dated, not allowing the viewer time to figure out what they are witnessing before the movie moves onto the next load of explosions and gunfire.

In the end, Green Zone is a mostly enjoyable war movie filled with great drama, pegged back by poor editing that dates the movie and makes it unwatchable for people who dislike the shaky-cam filming style.