Green Zone (2010)

Yeah, there were no WMD's in Iraq.  And we pretty much know why, and why we thought there were.  Green Zone attempts to, well, I dunno, explain a bit of that?  Maybe.  I think.  At least Chief Miller (Matt Damon) and "spook" Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson) want to, while other elements in "spook" Poundstone's (Greg Kinnear) camp would rather the truth not be known.

I think what we've got here is an attempt to show how the political bullsh*t that is now a part of the US war efforts is the root of our problems.  That and the (obvious in the film) secondary message that we shouldn't even be in Iraq.  Which makes the film a political statement and somewhat nullifying the first aim....  My head hurts.  Anyway.

What else can I say?  It plays out like your average "espionage thriller" might.  Sleazy good guys vs. Sleazy not quite so good guys vs. the "bad guys" vs. the guy caught in the middle.  But its not nearly as complex and intricate as it could be.

Don't get me wrong, the action sequences are pretty good, as you'd expect from "Bourne" director Paul Greengrass.  The settings and dressings are also top notch, big kudos from a production standpoint to be sure.

But like a lot of Blu-ray's I've seen lately, this suffers big time from the "low light digital noise" issue I see in a lot of films on blu lately.  Several scenes are barely discernible through the haze of it, and often times different shots (presumably from different cameras) in the same sequence will flip back and forth between crystal clear true blacks to this pixelized fog of, well, crap.  I hate it.  It's not film grain, at least I hope not, as it varies so much between shots, and even from the darks to lights in the same shot.  Why can't somebody fix this? (end rant)

Anyway, I wasn't all that impressed with Green Zone.  I'm not sure what I *was* expecting exactly, but I didn't find it here.  Average acting, average story,  I was just left with a "meh" feeling, which is what I'm giving Green Zone overall...

IMDB: Green Zone (2010)
Amazon: Green Zone [Blu-ray]

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Description

Academy Award® nominees Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum) reteam in this action-packed thriller. Damon stars as Roy Miller, a rogue U.S. Army officer who must hunt through covert and faulty intelligence hidden on foreign soil before war escalates in an unstable region. Also starring Academy Award® nominees Greg Kinnear and Amy Ryan, Green Zone is “one hell of a thriller” (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times).

Matt Damon reteams with his Bourne Supremacy director to create a thriller grounded in contemporary politics: the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Damon) travels across war-torn Iraq, pursuing the intelligence he's been given, but every site indicated comes up empty of WMDs. Investigating the source of the intelligence, he finds himself caught between CIA agent Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson, 28 Days Later) and politician Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear, Little Miss Sunshine) over the identity of "Magellan," the supposed source. As Miller tracks down an Iraqi general, he ends up further and further afield, facing danger from all sides. It's hard to say which is the greater accomplishment--that Green Zone manages to turn a still-volatile political issue into a propulsive action movie, or that it manages to depict Iraqi people as individuals with a wide range of responses to what's happened to their country. Damon's performance is low-key but effective as Miller tries to maintain some semblance of moral clarity in a circumstance that muddies everything. Also featuring Amy Ryan (Gone Baby Gone) as a compromised journalist and Khalid Abdalla (The Kite Runner) as an Iraqi civilian who gets dragged into far more than he expected. --Bret Fetzer

DVD Information

Binding: Blu-ray
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Brand: Universal
Manufacturer: Universal Pictures
Original Release Date:
Actors:

• Matt Damon
• Jason Isaacs

Reviews

Related posts:

1. The Green Berets (1968)
2. Armadillo (2010)
3. The Pacific (2010)
4. The Pacific Pt. 1 (2010)
5. Rhineland (2010)
6. Restrepo (2010)
7. 71-Into the Fire (2010)

This entry was posted on Friday, July 23rd, 2010 at 10:13 am and is filed under 2010s, Blu-Ray, Iraq Movies, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.