Review:
Green Zone

Director Paul Greengrass and actor Matt Damon have reunited on Green Zone, a slick, nail-biting action thriller which echoes their earlier successes with the Bourne Supremacy and the Bourne Ultimatum. Unlike the Bourne films however, Green Zone indulges less in cloak-and-dagger fantasy and more in contemporary reality and political commentary.

Matt Damon plays Roy Miller, a Chief Warrant Officer in the US Army who, in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq and the downfall of Saddam Hussein, is assigned to investigate sites in Iraq where weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) have been said to have been stockpiled by the Iraqi army.

He immediately runs into problems however when all of the sites that he visits have no WMDs, and clearly have no military associations. When he questions his superior officers about the reliability of the intelligence data they are working with, he is told that it comes from a trustworthy source and that he should just shut up and get on with his job.

When out on his next assignment, Miller receives a tip-off about a meeting between senior Iraqi officers and comes close to a confrontation with General Al Rawi, the ‘Jack of Clubs’ in the army’s Most Wanted list. Miller realises that the brass on his own side aren’t being straight with him, and that the only way he can uncover the truth is by disobeying orders to find Al Rawi before a team of elite US Special Forces soldiers catch up with him.

The film is shot in the director’s typical style – a lot of loose handheld camera work coupled with grainy documentary-style footage that really heightens the sense of immersion. The pacing is tightly choreographed - for most of the film you are on the edge of your seat - but the film does give the audience sufficient moments to breathe. The chase through the city streets at the film’s climax is particularly breakneck and seemingly-improvised, reminding me somewhat of the famous scene where Keanu Reeves chases Patrick Swayze across downtown LA in the 1991 film Point Break.

The supporting cast is strong but they are given relatively little material to play with. Jason Isaacs hardly says a word as the ruthless Special Forces officer Gibbs, and the earnest hand-wringing of Brendan Gleeson’s CIA Agent Martin Brown is rather undermined by his dodgy American accent. Amy Ryan’s reporter is the only noticeable female role, but her story feels rather like a simple margin note to the larger story. Greg Kinnear is the only one allowed to shine as the oily politician Clark Poundstone.