Tuesday, June 29, 2010

2010 - THE GREEN ZONE, Iraq war film is stunningly naive

Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon are shocked, shocked to realize that the United States government lied to the American public about the circumstances leading up to our involvement in Iraq.  It took them seven years and probably watching a lot of good documentaries that have already come out about Iraq, but they screwed up their courage and made a film stating the obvious.



Universal Studios couldn't say no to the director and star of the Bourne films but maybe they should have.  Damon's supposed to be playing a tough WMD soldier but he comes off more as a guy working towards his Eagle Scout badge. With the help of his trusty lap top and Google he goes to work.  He  uncovers the truth about the lack of WMD's in Iraq and our involvement in the war.   Finally towards the end of the film he becomes a gun blasting James Bond in search of the truth. 

The director Paul Greengrass uses his now very tiresome and cliche ridden hand held camera technique to make the action look like something in a bad You Tube video.  The staging is supposed to make the action look exciting but I can only imagine in a theater with all the bouncing around  the audience got a hell of a headache. Time to give Greengrass a tripod for his camera mount, the act is getting old. 


The only interesting character in the entire film is Greg Kinnear as the sneaky government employee manipulating everyone involved in the occupation of Iraq.  Kinnear has his own group of thugs to keep the truth from coming out but he meets his match in our true blue hero,  Damon.



Maybe someone will eventually make an Iraq war movie with widespread audience appeal, but for now audiences can enjoy seeing how cool Matt Damon looks in his military issue sunglasses

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