DVD Reviews

Green Zone – Blu-ray Review

By Patrick Luce Jun 24, 2010, 14:30 GMT

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 ...more

Green Zone is a fast-paced political thriller with a great ensemble cast and a director who is at home in the genre.

Your enjoyment of the film might depend on how well you can handle director Paul Greengrass’ shaky camera style of filming and the film’s slant on the Iraq war.

Based on Rajiv Chandrasekaran novel Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone, the film features a screenplay written by Brian Helgeland (Robin Hood, Mystic River), and stars Matt Damon (who worked with Greengrass on two of the Bourne films), Amy Ryan, Greg Kinnear, Brendan Gleeson, Khalid Abdalla, Jason Isaacs, and Yigal Naor.

It benefits from the cinematography work of Barry Ackroyd (who also handled cinematography chores for The Hurt Locker), the tight editing of Christopher Rouse (who worked with Greengrass on the Bourne films), and the production work of Dominic Watkins.

Greengrass also wisely chose to fill many of the soldier roles with real soldiers who had just returned from serving in Iraq. Their inclusion in the film gives it a great level of authenticity that other films in this genre have lacked. During the “making of” special features Greengrass and Damon talk about how the soldiers helped elevate all the actors’ performances in getting the dialogue and movements correct.

The film opens up after the 2003 invasion of Iraq and follows Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Damon) and his squad as they hunt for WMDs (weapons of mass destruction).

Miller is part of a task force who are charged with finding the WMDs, but he begins to believe the information they are being given about the WMDs’ locations is faulty. His squad is constantly sent to empty locations that have been listed as highly probable for WMDs by U.S. intelligence and its source – who’s code name is “Magellan.”

Miller brings up his doubts during a briefing, but is quickly silenced by his superiors and Department of Defense official Clark Poundstone (Kinnear). His outspokenness also gets the attention of CIA official Martin Brown (Gleeson) - who shares Miller's doubts about the WMDs and disagrees with Poundstone's plans for a post-invasion Iraq.

Miller begins to question Poundstone’s sources even more after he has a run-in with a local named Freddy (Khalid Abdalla) and a botched attempt to capture General Mohammed Al-Rawi (Naor). The attempt turns up some new intelligence on the WMDs, but also puts Miller in direct conflict with Major Briggs (Issacs) - who leads a Special Forces squad that are dispatched to help Poundstone keep a lid on Miller and also to interrogate high level prisoners.

Miller throws in with Brown and determines their best chance to discover the truth about the WMDs is to capture Al-Rawi. Freddy reluctantly agrees to help Miller, and the film slowly builds like a powder-keg that blows in the final moments of the film that are packed with action that is directly in the audience’s face thanks to Greengrass’ visual style.

At times, Green Zone feels a bit like the next Bourne film with Damon pretty much slipping back into the movements and quietness of the super-spy character that helped break him into a screen superstar.

The film also reminds of the Bourne franchise thanks to Greengrass’ visual style of keeping the camera on the move so the audience feels like they are part of the action. The enjoyment of the movie might also depend on your own political views (the movie takes a hard stand against U.S. reasons for being in Iraq and the search for WMDs that were never found).

Even with the heavy political themes and shaky camera tactics of Greengrass , Green Zone is a great war thriller that quickly hooks you on its fast moving plot and the overall realness of the production.

Damon is solid in the film and believable in the role. To me, this was mostly due to the supporting cast in his squad which flowed like a unit that had been in combat for a long time and knew to follow Damon’s orders without question.

The movie veers a tad into Bourne territory towards the end as Miller is kidnapped from his squad, escapes and sets out to capture Al-Rawi – who is on the run from Briggs and what seems like half the U.S. Army during a huge firefight.

Damon never takes on the super-solider skills of Bourne, but manages to avoid getting shot time and time again despite being out-numbered and on the move.

I also really enjoyed Issacs’ performance in the film, and was never quite sure where his loyalties remained. At times, it was unclear if the actor (who is virtually unrecognizable in the role) was planning on taking out Miller and Al-Rawi or was legitimately trying to rescue Miller from his captors.

You also have to love Kinnear’s performance as a bureaucratic pencil pusher who refuses to listen to other sources, believes he knows best, and is later revealed to have a huge secret about the Iraq invasion. Kinnear plays the character as a pompous know-it-all and you almost instantly hate the guy the second he comes on screen.

Unfortunately, the film really wastes the talents of Gleeson and Ryan who are not given enough screen time to really matter despite being important characters in the movie.

Both actors do the best with the roles, but never really come into the story enough to matter. Ryan is Poundstone’s pawn and reports what he says word for word without checking with her own sources, and Brown is basically just the voice of opposition to Poundstone’s plans for Iraq.

The film looks fantastic on Blu-ray with a mixture of grain and polish. The action scenes are grainy during the battles (especially at night), but it helps to sell the authenticity of the scene while many of Kinnear’s scenes seem to have the polish you expect from the 1080p format.

The Blu-ray is also loaded with special features that help you appreciate the film and what the filmmakers were trying to accomplish. Matt Damon: Ready for Action and Inside the Green Zone are your basic “behind the scenes” look at the film, but include several interviews with the soldiers who served in Iraq and then signed on to the film to be extras.

Greengrass and Damon discuss why they wanted the real soldiers on the screen and how they feel it elevated everyone’s’ performance. The Blu-ray also comes with several deleted scenes which open up the story a tad more. In my opinion, several of the scenes should have been included in theatrical release.

Green Zone is a solid action thriller from a director who knows how to handle the genre and has his own signature style for it. Your enjoyment of the film might depend on your political views and how much you can stand Greengrass’ style. I enjoyed it, and think it is one of those films that will get better with multiple viewings.