Film review: The Green Zone

MEAT AND DUST: Matt Damon, right, anchors a noisy thriller set in the Iraq invasion.

Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass have been having all sorts of fun by subverting the pugnacious brand of "all-American boy" that Damon first made his name with, and reinventing the angsty moppet as something of a stalking horse for the liberal Left.

Greengrass' helming of the latter two parts of the Bourne trilogy turned those films into an overt anti-Bush era critique, full of all the guns and chases and fisticuffs that a blockbuster needs to get bums on seats, but also replete with warnings about the dangers to democracy posed by secret government agencies throwing out the rule book in our supposed "defence".

So it's no surprise really that the latest instalment in the Paul 'n' Matt show only looks like a noisy thriller set against the 2003 invasion of Iraq. What The Green Zone actually represents is Greengrass' reminding America that their president lied to get them to support his war in Iraq. There were no "weapons of mass destruction" (well, not on the Iraqi side, anyway) and the politicians always knew that.

Weaving a politicised anti-war film into a kinetic and blood-drenched, erm, war film is a pretty neat trick, and Greengrass pulls it off well.

Damon runs and jumps and shouts from first frame to last, while all around him things and people blow up and fall over with impressive regularity. Damon is no super-soldier here, but more your average grunt in way over his snub-nosed little head, but calling The Green Zone "Bourne does Baghdad" is still not too far from the truth.

If you were a fan of that trilogy – on any level – you will find plenty to enjoy here.

THE GREEN ZONE
(M)
(115min)
Starring Matt Damon, Greg Kinnear, Brendan Gleeson.
Directed by Paul Greengrass.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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jared   #3   10:33 am Mar 22 2010

M A T T D A M O N!

alex d.   #2   11:52 am Mar 21 2010

this was a great movie

Graeme Tuckett   #1   06:14 am Mar 20 2010

Mis-print. The review should three and a half stars.

GT

[Star rating amended]