There’s a politically potent scene towards the end of the film Green Zone (‘inspired’ by Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s ‘Imperial Life in the Emerald City’) which shows an aerial view of Iraqi oil refineries. Apt and a telling ending to a film that demolishes any belief in WMD. The film has also been dubbed, ‘Bourne in Baghdad’ (based on the Bourne series) as this is another collaboration between Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass. It is a high octane action-packed political thriller fictionalised account (and as they say the difference between documentary and fiction is with fiction you have to tell the truth) that is set at the start of the invasion of Iraq (early 2003) where US military soldier, chief warrant officer Miller, (Damon) is given the task with his unit to find WMDs. Miller discovers that he has been sent on a wild goose chase (the ‘intelligence’ just doesn’t ‘add up’) and wants to know why. Miller goes ‘rogue’ to uncover the truth about WMDs where he is continually obstructed and comes up against the lies and deceit perpetuated by Pentagon and Washington officials, one corrupt official called Poundstone (this reminded me of ‘Operation Treadstone’ in the Bourne films). Miller comes up against a weary and out-of-the-political-loop CIA agent who doesn’t believe there’s any WMDs, a duped journalist, a macho special-ops ‘baddie’ American soldier (played by Brit Jason Isaacs) and disabled war weary Iraqi ‘Freddy’ who acts as Miller’s translator. With the eventual meeting with one Saddam’s generals which is highly dramatic and fast paced, and the whole charade of WMDs unfolds and where the reality dawns of Miller.
Unlike the Hurt Locker which is a more in-depth slow-paced psychological portrait of soldiers engaged in combat in Iraq and obviously with its political colours nailed to the establishment pro-war friendly mast and therefore a safe Oscars shoo-in (Bigelow in her acceptance Oscar speech dedicated it to soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq). In saying all that, I still believe it is a well crafted film and believable characterisations of modern-day shell-shocked soldiers. While Green Zone is clearly partisan in its anti-war message, where the lacks in character development it makes up for it stating loud and clear that the Iraq war was based on a lie, with its shaky edgy hand-held camera docu-drama about it. There is another powerful scene where ‘Freddy’ eloquently states to Miller, ‘you have no right to decide what is best for us’. We witness the horrors of torture as Miller enters a camp where Iraqis are being held, abused hooded frightened men forced to their knees while soldiers stand around with barking dogs. Again, Miller faces up to the reality of the so-called ‘liberation’ of Iraq. It also brought to mind Karl Rove’s latest defence of the indefensible… waterboarding.
The battle scenes are dramatic and cinematography breath-taking (Barry Ackroyd was the cinematographer for The Hurt Locker). The acting is good especially Khalid Abdalla who plays ‘Freddy’ is very impressive and comes across as realistic in his portrayal. Greengrass is known for his social realism and bold political commentary films such as ‘The Murder of Stephen Lawrence’, ‘Bloody Sunday’, and ‘United 93′…
It is undeniably an anti-war film that honestly confronts what really happened in Iraq, which wasn’t about liberation but enslavement and expropriation though some how I doubt it will win any Oscars.
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