Green Zone

Greengrass had always wanted to make a film about the invasion of Iraq and search for Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) but it wasn’t until he was handed a copy of Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Baghdad’s Green Zone, that he found the inspiration and material to guide him. Although not a direct adaptation, Green Zone is an action-packed conspiracy thriller about the US invasion of Iraq.  Matt Damon’s Roy Miller is in fact based around the real life Chief Warrant Officer, Monty Gonzalez, who acted as adviser and collaborator throughout the film. As the hunt for the WMD reveals nothing, Miller goes on a rogue mission to hunt down the truth. This premise will inevitably be likened to the Bourne saga, but don’t worry, Green Zone is NOT Jason Bourne in Iraq.
 

The opening scene propels us into the initial invasion of Baghdad with that familiar, shaky hand-held style of kinetic cinema that we have come to expect of Greengrass.  The insurgents scramble to lead senior official Mohammed Al Rawi - one of Saddam Hussein’s Generals - to safety amidst explosions and chaos.  He passes off a little black book (a vital object) and tells his followers to meet him at an unspecified point and time.  We are then moved on a few months and introduced to Miller: professional and confident, he is a soldier convinced there are WMD to be found and his frustration is clear when after three unsuccessful forays no WMD have been found. Despite his senior’s reassurances, Miller bravely starts asking questions about the intel packets that informed of these dead end sites.  Freddy (Khalid Abdalla), an Iraqi civilian with one leg, risks his own well being to approach the Americans with information about a suspicious meeting he has just witnessed, giving Miller the opportunity to take action that will hopefully lead to some answers.
 

As he assembles a team to crash the meeting, one Al Rawi is identified and gets away. Miller manages to take hostages and, with Freddy as a translator, reveals the mysterious little black book. Just as Miller seems set to uncover the truth, Major Briggs (Jason Isaacs sporting the supporting moustache of the year) expertly upends Miller for both the hostages and for getting in his way exclaiming that this goes “well above him”.  From here we are rocketed around the conspiracy surrounding the hunt for the elusive WMD and motive behind the invasion of Iraq.  Miller has aid within the CIA through Martin Brown (the ever excellent Brendan Gleeson) who conflicts with Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear), the Pentagon Special Intelligence Officer.  Poundstone has promised journalist Lawrie Dawne (Amy Ryan) the source for all the intel on the WMD after she has written about all the ‘facts’ given to her about the reasons for the invasion.  Like Miller, she starts questioning their credibility.  The supporting cast do a fantastic job but unfortunately, as the film plays out, there is a certain lack of both Lawrie Dawne and Briggs.
 

Greengrass doesn’t concentrate on the ‘red zone’ (everything directly outside the green zone) where modern cinema would often have us believe is the problem, instead his focus is on the green zone in Baghdad (the epicentre being Saddam Hussein’s palace) and the political figures that indulge themselves in power and ambition to bring a coalition to Iraq - the political agenda is clearly the root of the problem. All that conspiracy and paranoia displayed in the Bourne films is an ongoing motif here, but scarily, is no longer fiction and is all history we can relate to as I’m sure we all remember reading about the search for WMD and the number found forever at zero.
 

So, with Poundstone instructing Briggs against Miller’s worthy quest for answers, Green Zone builds to a frenetic pace towards the end as both hunt down Al Rawi for their resolve.  This is somewhat let down when the film wraps up with its political agenda at mind, slowing right down to deliver some sort of conclusion. Wholly, ‘Green Zone’ is an exciting, tense thriller with bags of action that is heightened by Greengrass’ pace of direction helped by cinematographer, Barry Ackroyd (The Hurt Locker), who is no stranger to this landscape, adding something more onscreen with a grainy, real aesthetic and vast, expansive shots of the Baghdad horizon, often ablaze, that is quite the spectacle.  Damon is great as Miller, carrying the film with his stature and ability to genuinely deliver a sense of urgency and conflict regarding his mission.
 

The political importance of the film is increased by its timely release as the Chilcot inquiry continues right now, but what is really important throughout the film is that there’s a real retrospect of how the population of Iraq are dealing with the invasion and conflict.  Freddy perfectly represents empathetic emotion that everyone should be aware of about the civilians in the Middle East conflict. At the end of the film, he and Greengrass deliver a clear political statement to America: ‘It is not for you to decide what happens here.’