GREEN ZONE
2 out of 5 stars

this one certainly had the potential to be great. in fact, i think given the subject matter it had the potential to be quite awesome... but, unfortunately NOT... :( (and, let me tell you why)



matt damon and paul greengrass (both action star and director of the bourne identity movies) take on the wild wild middle east and the hunt for “weapons of mass destruction” in iraq. chief warrant officer roy miller (damon) gets sick of coming up empty-handed, and begins to question the intel coming from above. he starts to think that the intel was either fabricated or compromised, and that’s when clark poundstone from the pentagon’s special intelligence unit (played brilliantly by greg kinnear) begins to worry that miller is close to the truth. miller is helped by reporter laurie dayne (amy ryan aka holly from the office) and CIA veteran/middle east expert martin brown (played by another brilliant actor brendan gleeson) who knows the “right” way of ending the iraq conflict and bringing democracy to the iraqi people. ultimately, it’s all about what is our true purpose of being in iraq?


like i said, the subject matter is highly cool, but it doesn’t quite deliver... (much like the phantom WMD’s, i guess) i don’t think i’ve ever been more bored nor more nauseous watching matt damon running around baghdad. (to me: it was cloverfield all over again...barf!) i felt like it was filmed by multiple hand-held cameras, and A+ for letting us believe that this could be realistic footage but D for letting me almost lose my supper... i often feel like the best war-related movies are the ones that either ring true to a person’s heart (i.e. about the soldiers, their life stories, etc.) or become thrillers that may be a fictional story but tells us a good one about us vs. them. (i.e. the kingdom or the hurt locker)


so, would i recommend this? yes, if you like this sort of genre, but don’t be naive when you do watch it... ;)