Paul Greengrass’s new film ‘Green Zone’ takes us deep into the chaotic, violent world of Baghdad at the time of America’s crippling invasion of Iraq’s capital city. Greengrass’s film is taken from Brian Helgeland’s adaptation of Rajiv Chandrasekeran’s book, ‘‘Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone”. Chandraskeran was the Washington Post’s Bureau Chief in Baghdad at the time.
Matt Damon plays mover and shaker Chief Warrant Officer Miller who is one of the officers deployed to Baghdad to look for and defuse Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. Miller starts getting suspicious when raid after raid he comes up with nothing from facilities that are supposed to be bases for the weapons. Damon befriends a Baghdad based CIA agent who hints that there is much more to ‘the story’. Chief Warrant Officer Miller starts off on a journey to uncover the truth.
With Barry Ackroyd’s unnerving, fast paced camerawork, the way the sense of tension, fear and panic is captured, the graphic images of devastation, and the suspense created as the movie builds up to its climax, ‘Green Zone’ packs a wallop as an in your face war drama.
On a deeper level, the film also works as a highly political film. As Greengrass himself is quoted as saying, ‘Film shouldn’t be disenfranchised from the national conversation. It is never too soon for cinema to engage with events that shape our lives’. ‘Green Zone’ works as as a stinging rebuke of the Bush government and the way it failed to scrutinise the intelligence it received.
A telling quote from the film has Major Briggs, an adversary of Miller’s say to him in one of their confrontational scenes, ‘Have a good war’ as if, in some way, they are getting enjoyment out of the hellish mayhem.
Matt Damon as Chief Warrant Officer Miller, Amy Ryan as Wall Street journalist Lawrie Dayne, Greg Kinnnear as Pentagon Special Intelligence Office. Poundstone. and Brendan Gleeson as CIA operative Martin Brown stand out in a strong cast.
‘Green Zone’ is substantial movie fare. Well worth a look.