For the Bourne series aficionados GREEN ZONE will be orgasmic. From the same team of Matt Damon and Director Paul Greengrass , who has teamed up with cinematographer Barry Ackroyd (Hurt Locker), who seems to have elevated jerky camera movements to an art form.
The plot is based on the book “Imperial Life in the Emerald City” by Rajiv Chandrasekhar, who has earlier been a journalist in Middle East. Of course the screen play has meta-morphed the book into a political thriller.
Plot without spoiler – Its 2003. US army has just invaded Iraq, after accusing Saddam of possessing bio-chemical WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction). Saddam and his coterie are on the run.
Roy Miller (Matt Damon) is a US army WMD inspector searching in bombed out Iraq for the ominous bio-chemical caches. He is repeatedly frustrated and starts questioning the inputs from army-intelligence, on WMD locations. But his brass and the Pentagon rep in Iraq, Clark Poundstone debunk him.
Roy Miller finds a sympathetic comrade-in-arms in the local CIA station head Martin Brown - a craggy mid-eastern CIA field man of a decade, who is openly skeptical of the Pentagon policy of trying to run Iraq with a puppet local administration. He feels they are totally oblivious to Iraq’s ground reality and ethnic divides.
In this scenario, with the unexpected assistance of Freddy, a local Iraqi, Roy Miller stumbles upon the hideout of Saddam’s senior most Bathist General Rawi. Rawi escapes but Roy Miller captures his key man along with a black book of all the safe-houses where the Bathist elite are hiding. The Pentagon rep Clark Poundstone uses his hit squad of US army special forces to grab the captured key man and the black book from Roy Miller.
Eric by now has realized that the WMD theory itself is suspect and was planted elaborately by the Bush administration through the media, to convince the American public and justify war against Iraq.
The rest is a cat-and-mouse game between the Pentagon crony vs. CIA and Roy Miller who is now openly rebellious, intent on unearthing the source of WMD theory.
Net take- In the acting department everyone scores in spite of clichéd characterization. Khalid Abdalla as Freddy, the helpful Iraqi local stands out. Matt Damon of course has the sort of simple sincerity which is convincing.
With high production values, brought out by landmark cinematography and pulsating editing (Christopher Rouse), Green Zone gives the viewer the eerie sense of being in the middle of all the action. That’s where this movie differs, when the viewer is no longer just a mere spectator.
It’s a fast paced political thriller, in the guise of an ‘US army in Iraq’ action movie. In fact some have strongly dubbed it as an ‘Anti-American’ movie; which has warmed the hearts of anti-establishment legends like Michael Moore.
Green Zone takes the conspiracy theory of the Bourne series more blatantly and makes a more comprehensive statement against the ‘political agenda at any cost’.
