Green Zone (2010)

Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Movie Review: "Green Zone" (2010)Director Paul Greengrass reunites with leading actor Matt Damon performing fully-geared-up to war-conspiracy exposing Chief Captain Miller of U.S. military special forces, telling the story of the first months in the Iraq invasion in March 2003, which should have been clean-cut mission operatives, but then had been produced stretched tours for thousand of U.S. American army-signing citizens over six years until January 1st 2009 give-back regarding the title-given governmental capital area in the eastern parts of Baghdad to make sense out of an hostile take-over based on an hyper-theoretical atomic threat for the western hemisphere through the Iraqi government, led by already-deceased former-president Saddam Hussein (1937-2006), when "Green Zone" presents itself as one of most ambitious high-scale modern warfare film production eve- conceived by Hollywood's dream-factory represented by distributor Universal Pictures associated with driving completion-forces by London-based production company "Working Title" represented by managing producers Eric Fellner & Tim Bevan, who are able to raise an 100-Million-Dollar production budget, which gets put entirely into realistic war zone scenarios paired with highly-advanced military equipment and thriller elements-striving military internal affair conspiracy of forging mission Intel for profitable home-based business ventures, especially recalling "Jarhead" movie directed by Sam Mendes in season 2004/2005 in thematically-scratched oil resources of this middle eastern region, when Director Paul Greengrass focuses on Matt Damon's character in bringing order in the chaotically-received high-standard 35mm handheld cinematography by lighting cameraman Barry Ackroyd, whose peaked body of work remains unsurprisingly emotional distant after Kathryn Bigelow major directing effort with "The Hurt Locker", when "Green Zone" does not seem to convince fully on whirling Baghdad-citizens story-interventions with picture-carrying Matt Damon under Greengrass' direction with respect of what had been possible to bring the utmost enduring stress situations for U.S. American soldiers to life, who deserve a full-bodied cinematic motivations of a "Brother in Arms" fighting cause as given with a more recent Mark Wahlberg led "Lone Survivor" (2013), when supporting characters as CIA-agent playing Brendan Gleeson and further U.S. army administration-executing characters portrayed by Amy Ryan and Greg Kinnear do not get the chance to punch necessary beats to make "Green Zone" a satisfactory war-action-movie without overly-done patriotism, but then again shallow mass-audience-seeking depth of an unless highly-potential screenplay by supreme screenwriter Brian Helgeland.© 2018 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

Having absolutely adored the previous two collaborations between star Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass, I was more than pumped to get hold of this follow-up, a war-based thriller set during the days when the west still believed that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq. This turns out to be a solid, thought-provoking film; it can't hold a candle to BOURNE, but then it doesn't want to – it's a different beast entirely! Instead, it tackles the complicated situation of American intelligence in Iraq, throwing in seemingly disparate elements like a crippled Iraqi patriot, one of Saddam's top generals, a shady high-level operative and a gruff CIA boss. Once the plot strands come together the film explodes into life, with the last section a pulse-pounding journey through the narrow streets of Iraq with bullets and explosions going off all over the place.Greengrass is in his element with this kind of movie. His direction is sound as ever, with particularly well handled action bits and interesting exposition, too. Damon seems an odd choice at first for the soldiery central role but he turns out to be a god send in the part – very human, very flawed, but a man whose stubborn nature will see him through. There's a trio of meaty supporting roles for the likes of character actors Brendan Gleeson, Jason Isaacs, and Greg Kinnear and some very decent turns from the Arab actors as well.As for the plot…watching feels a little weird, as in retrospect every viewer will know that there were never any WMDs, so Damon's surprise on discovering this is a little muted. Still, I found the handling of the characters to be particularly moving, especially Freddy and also the general, guys who genuinely love their country and will do anything to see peace restored. Who'd think you'd end up moved by a war-based thriller set during the invasion of Iraq?

This movie cops out and cuts corners in nearly every way possible. Hey you want to show a partially destroyed building, yeah lots not make a set lets just use obvious CGI. Hey instead of firing blanks and using squibs to show bullet impact, lets use CGI. Yeah that's right, sh!tty CG for the muzzle flash, sh!tty CG for the smoke the gun produces, and sh!tty CG for any and all bullet impacts. I don't understand why you would make a movie like this and just halfass it. It's not relying on a strong or compelling story. The characters are bland and we know the outcome before the movie even starts: there are no WMDs. It doesn't try to be realistic about anything either. The soldiers never show trigger discipline, always fire on full auto, and nobody ever seems to miss a shot no matter how inaccurate their full auto fire should be. So what is Green Zone even going for? The action is still enjoyable to watch in a dumb mind numbing way (even if a clichéd action movie soundtracks plays throughout every intense scene instead of letting the ambient noises create the atmosphere itself), and any conspiracy movie is intriguing in some sense as long as it isn't total garbage. So although I cannot recommend this movie I can't say it's totally unwatchable. Unless you hate hand-held, then yes the majority of this movie is totally unwatchable shaky cam with quick cut editing. No, this movie suffers from being average in every single category.

Pretty lame. Very contrived, implausible and blatantly left-wing. Starts off well enough, but the more the plot was revealed, the more convoluted, yet ultimately predictable, it became.Direction is fairly poor. Paul Greengrass thinks that waving a camera around makes a film more realistic. It might, but it also makes the audience nauseous, and bored. The action sequences go on forever, and one chase scene had me reaching for the fast forward button (and even then it was boring).Matt Damon does his standard action-man routine, very reminiscent of the Bourne series, and does it well. Greg Kinnear does his usual B-grade bad guy act. Brendon Gleeson and Amy Ryan are solid in their roles.Such a good build-up, wasted on political correctness and left-wing sympathies.