Green Zone (film)

Green Zone
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Paul Greengrass
Written by	Brian Helgeland Rajiv Chandrasekaran (Book)
Produced by	Tim Bevan Eric Fellner Lloyd Levin Paul Greengrass
Starring	Matt Damon Greg Kinnear Brendan Gleeson Amy Ryan Khalid Abdalla Jason Isaacs Yigal Naor
Cinematography	Barry Ackroyd
Edited by	Christopher Rouse
Music by	John Powell
Production companies	StudioCanal Relativity Media Antena 3 Working Title Films
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date	March 12, 2010 (2010-03-12)
Running time	115 min.
Countries	United Kingdom France United States Spain
Language	English
Budget	$100 million
Box office	$98,153,660

Green Zone is a 2010 action thriller war film written by Brian Helgeland and directed by Paul Greengrass. The film was inspired by the non-fiction 2006 book Imperial Life in the Emerald City by journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran, which documented life in the Green Zone, Baghdad. The film stars Matt Damon, Amy Ryan, Greg Kinnear, and Brendan Gleeson. Production began in January 2008 in Spain and moved on to Morocco. The film was released in Australia and Russia on March 11, 2010, and in the USA and some other countries on March 12, 2010. The film was released on DVD and Blu-Ray on June 22, 2010.

Plot

Iraqi General Mohammed Al-Rawi (Yigal Naor), hiding in Baghdad, is meeting with his aides talking about the invasion of Iraq. Al-Rawi suggests that they wait until the Americans arrive and perhaps make his army an offer to join their forces.

Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) and his squad investigate a warehouse, believed to be holding Weapons of Mass Destruction. But they find that the warehouse is empty. At a debriefing, Miller brings up the point that the majority of the intel given to him is inaccurate and anonymous, stating that on his last three attempts to find WMDs, his team had come up with nothing. High-ranking officials quickly dismiss Miller's theory about the intelligence being false. After the debriefing, Miller meets Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson), a CIA officer based in the Middle East who tells Miller that the next place he is going to investigate for WMDs is also empty, as a team had already searched there two months ago.

Meanwhile, Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear) is welcoming Ahmed Zubadi (Raad Rawi) an Iraqi politician at Saddam International Airport, where he is interrogated by journalist Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan). She asks if she could speak to "Magellan", to which Poundstone says that he is heavily "locked up".

While investigating another site, Miller is approached by the Iraqi who calls himself "Freddie" (Khalid Abdalla), who tells Miller that he saw Al-Rawi at the meeting in a nearby house. Miller and his men swiftly burst into the house. Al-Rawi narrowly escapes, but one of his henchmen is taken into custody. Before Miller can extract any more information, the man is taken by US Army Special Forces, sent by Poundstone.

Miller goes to Brown's hotel in the green zone and tells him what happened. Brown gets permission for Miller to visit the man taken by Delta Force. Before leaving, he is approached by Wall Street Journal correspondent Lawrie Dayne. Miller soon finds the Iraqi informant in prison. Now severely wounded, the man responds to Miller's question with one word: "Jordan". With Brown's help, Miller's suspicions are confirmed that Al-Rawi met with Poundstone in February in Jordan as Poundstone's inside man.

When Miller tries to meet with Al-Rawi, he is kidnapped by Al-Rawi's men because Poundstone announced the decision to disband the entire Iraqi army. Al-Rawi tells Miller that he told Poundstone there had been no WMD program since the First Persian Gulf War; Poundstone apparently lied to his superiors in Washington – so that Iraq would be invaded. American forces commence an attack on Al-Rawi's positions, and the general flees. Meanwhile, Miller kills his captor and races to capture Al Rawi. When he finally manages to catch up with him, Freddie suddenly appears and kills Al-Rawi, saying to Miller, "It is not for you to decide what happens here." Later in his hotel room, Miller writes a report of everything that happened.

Miller confronts Poundstone in a meeting and gives him the report. Poundstone tells Miller that WMDs do not matter. Then Miller violently grabs Poundstone, saying "the reason we go to war always matters.", but they are broken up. Poundstone then rejoins the Iraqi meeting, only to see the Iraqi factional leaders yelling at each other and leaving the meeting. Afterwards, Dayne receives an e-mailed copy of Miller's report. Miller sent it to all major news agencies around the world. The camera then pans out to show Miller driving off on the Iraqi highway, with the Iraqi oil fields in the background.

Cast

• Matt Damon portrays Roy Miller, a warrant officer who helps a senior CIA officer in search of weapons of mass destruction. Roy Miller is based on real-life Army chief warrant officer Richard "Monty" Gonzales, whose Mobile Exploitation Team was charged with finding the WMDs during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Damon joined the film with the assurance that production would conclude by April 14, 2008 so he could start working on the Steven Soderbergh film The Informant! on April 15, amidst the scheduling difficulties caused by the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike.
• Amy Ryan portrays Lawrie Dayne, a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal who investigates the U.S. government's claims of the existence of weapons of mass destruction. One reviewer noted that, "while the usual disclaimer insists that all the characters herein are fictitious, it's crystal-clear that...Dayne is former New York Times reporter Judith Miller."
• Brendan Gleeson portrays Martin Brown, the CIA Baghdad bureau chief, loosely based on Jay Garner.
• Greg Kinnear portrays Clark Poundstone, Pentagon Special Intelligence. One reviewer saw, despite the "usual ... fictitious ... disclaimer, ... Paul Brenner [sic]," Coalition Provisional Authority head in 2003-4, in the Poundstone character.
• Yigal Naor portrays General Mohammed Al-Rawi, who is an informant called 'Magellan', loosely based on the real life informant Rafid Ahmed Alwan aka 'Curveball'.
• Nicoye Banks portrays Perry.
• Jason Isaacs portrays Maj. Briggs, an unscrupulous Delta Force operator.
• Martin McDougall portrays Mr. Sheen, CIA Baghdad assistant bureau chief.
• Khalid Abdalla portrays Freddy, an injured Iraqi who has a "penchant for Bryan Adams". In the movie he becomes Miller's translator. Abdalla was cast in the role after impressing Greengrass with his performance in United 93. The actor prepared for his role by learning the Iraqi Arabic dialect and reading Iraqi blogs like Riverbend and Alive in Baghdad.
• Antoni Corone portrays a colonel.
• Tommy Campbell portrays the Chopper Comms Commander.
• Paul McIntosh portrays a CIA officer.
• Sean Huze portrays U.S. Army Sergeant Conway, a member of Roy Miller's MET team.
• Robert Harrison O'Neil portrays a TV Journalist.
• Said Faraj portrays Seyyed Hamza
• Abdul Henderson portrays Marshall, a member of Roy Miller's MET team.

Production

In January 2007, after completing The Bourne Ultimatum, director Paul Greengrass announced his intent to adapt a film of the 2006 non-fiction book Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a journalist for The Washington Post. Greengrass wrote a script based on the book, working with researchers Kate Solomon and Michael Bronner, who helped the director research for United 93 (2006). The script was reported to be developed more in advance than the script for The Bourne Ultimatum, which had undergone changes during production. Screenwriter Tom Stoppard was originally requested to write the script for Greengrass, but because Stoppard was too busy, screenwriter Brian Helgeland instead collaborated with the director to shape the film's premise. Greengrass expressed interest in casting in the lead actor Matt Damon, with whom he had worked on The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, and the actor joined the project in June 2007. Actors Amy Ryan, Greg Kinnear, and Antoni Corone were later cast in January 2008. Greengrass said of the project's contemporary relevance, "Film shouldn't be disenfranchised from the national conversation. It is never too soon for cinema to engage with events that shape our lives."

Production of Green Zone was originally slated to begin in late 2007. Instead, it began in Spain on January 10, 2008, moved to Morocco, and finished filming in the UK in December 2008.

Director's motivation

The film's director, Paul Greengrass, has said that he first thought about making a movie about the subject of the war in Iraq, rather than telling a particular story. Although he initially supported Tony Blair's justifications of the war, he became disillusioned over time. Greengrass carried out extensive research into the background to the conflict, reading journalists such as Bob Woodward, Seymour Hersh, James Risen, Thomas Ricks, and Ron Suskind, in addition to Rajiv Chandrasekaran, whose book he optioned. He has even compiled a document How Did We Get It So Wrong? detailing what he learned. Although Greengrass initially wanted to make a smaller film, he eventually decided a bigger budget production would expose more people to the ideas in the film.

Addressing some of the contentions in the film, Greengrass has said that the arguments about disbanding the Iraqi army portrayed in the film represent debates that actually took place for US policy makers. The issue of the culpability of the Fourth Estate in taking intelligence at face value although embodied by a single character represents a broad based failing in both the USA and UK, but for Greengrass the fault ultimately lay with those trying to manipulate them.

Greengrass has said that both the Bourne films and Green Zone reflect a widespread popular mistrust of authority that was engendered by governments that have not told the truth and have let their citizens down over the Iraq war. The confusion surrounding the absence of WMD in Iraq also provided an ideal scenario for a thriller, in which the protagonist battles for the truth.

Reception

Critical response

The film has received generally mixed reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes reports that 55% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 161 reviews, with an average score of 6/10. Its consensus states that "Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass return to the propulsive action and visceral editing of the Bourne films – but a cliched script and stock characters keep those methods from being as effective this time around." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating of 0–100 on top reviews from mainstream critics, gave the film a "generally favorable" score of 61% based on 35 reviews.

Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film 4 stars and wrote that Green Zone is "one hell of a thriller." James Berardinelli of ReelView gave the film 3.5 stars, stating that the "most rewarding aspect of Green Zone is the manner in which it interweaves fact and fiction into an engaging whole." A.O. Scott writing for The New York Times praised director Paul Greengrass's direction, writing in his review that "There is plenty of fighting in Green Zone, most of it executed with the hurtling hand-held camerawork and staccato editing that are hallmarks of Mr. Greengrass's style. From Bloody Sunday through the second and third Bourne movies (which turned Mr. Damon into a minimalist movie star), this director has honed his skill at balancing chaos with clarity."

Political controversy

The film has received political criticism. Some have called it "anti-American" or "anti-war" such as movie reviewer Kyle Smith who went so far as to label the film "slander" and "appallingly anti-American." According to an article on Fox News.com, it states "Given this set-up, audiences are encouraged to root for Miller's rogue activities and against the government, represented in the film by a corrupt Pentagon chief played by Greg Kinnear."

Richard "Monty" Gonzales, the person on whom the character of Roy Miller was loosely based, commented that both sides of the political spectrum have reacted disproportionately to what is a work of fiction and any political controversy is unwarranted. Gonzales worked as one of the film's military advisors over two years on the condition that the film would be faithful to the experience of American soldiers in Iraq. For Gonzales, on the one hand, the film captures the critical intelligence blunders prior to the war and de-Baathification program that ensured that the conflict was costly and complicated. But he maintains that a reading of the film that reflects a genuine conspiracy by sections of the American government is incorrect. He sees the film solely as an exciting "Bourne-in-Bagdad thriller". Matt Damon cites Gonzales' motives for working on the film as being "because we need to regain our moral authority."

In the UK, the politics met with a mixed reception. The Daily Mail called the film "a preachy political thriller disguised as an action flick". The paper acknowledged that while important political truths do emerge over the course of the film, the film overreaches itself as these points have "the air of being aimed at ignorant American teenagers." Meanwhile Tim Robey in The Daily Telegraph conceded that "with all we retrospectively know about the wool-pulling to make the case for war, it's a kick to follow a main character on the ground who smells a rat", however a rogue hero who never faces a reprimand and never suffers paranoia lacks credibility. More enthusiastically, Andrew O'Hagan in The Evening Standard called Green Zone "one of the best war films ever made" because "it does what countless newspaper articles, memoirs, government statements and public inquiries have failed to do when it comes to the war in Iraq: expose the terrible lies that stood behind the decision of the US and Britain to prosecute the war, and it does so in a way that is dramatically brilliant, morally complex and relentlessly thrilling."

The New York Times designated the film a Critic's Pick and said that the movie, while addressing timely concerns, "seems to epitomize the ability of mainstream commercial cinema to streamline the complexities of the real world without becoming overly simplistic, to fictionalize without falsifying." Also, writing in The Guardian James Denselow praises the film's portrayal of the conflict, saying "ultimately what gives the film its credibility is that it avoids any simplistic idea that Iraq could have simply been 'got right'. Indeed Miller's vision of exposing the WMD conspiracy and the CIA's plan to keep the Iraqi army is undermined by the film's wildcard – a nationalist Shia war veteran who turns the plot on its head before delivering the killer line to the Americans when he tells them: 'It is not for you to decide what happens here [in this country].'"

Director Paul Greengrass came to defense of his film in an interview with Charlie Rose. Greengrass said that "The problem, I think, for me is that something about that event strained all the bonds and sinews that connect us all together. For me it's to do with the fact that they said they had the intelligence, and then it emerged later that they did not." Matt Damon also defended the film telling MTV News "I don't think that's a particularly incendiary thing to say. I think that's a journey that we all went on and a fundamental question we all asked and it's not partisan." On March 13, Michael Moore posted on his Twitter page: "I can't believe this film got made. It's been stupidly marketed as an action film. It is the most HONEST film about the Iraq War made by Hollywood."(sic)

Box office

According to Box Office Mojo, the film opened at No. 2 in the United States with $14,309,295 in 3,003 theaters, averaging $4,765 per theater. Given its budget of roughly $100 million, in addition to its $40 million in marketing, Green Zone has been referred to as a flop for its production company Universal Studios. In the UK the film was the third most popular film of its opening weekend, selling £1.55 million worth of tickets (or £2.07 million including previews). Comparing the relative opening weekend results of Green Zone and Shutter Island between the USA and UK, Green Zone did twice as well in the UK as on the other side of the Atlantic. The Guardian stated that the film would be unlikely to recoup its production costs.

As of May 28, 2010, Green Zone has grossed $38,153,660 in the United States and $98,153,660 worldwide.

Home media

Green Zone was released on Blu Ray on June 22, 2010. Early Blu Ray reviews have been positive so far calling the film an engaging political thriller with a better than average transfer.

External links

• Official website
• Green Zone at IMDb
• Green Zone at AllMovie
• Green Zone at Box Office Mojo
• Green Zone at Rotten Tomatoes
• Green Zone at Metacritic
• Green Zone Blu-ray Disc review at HD Report
• Matt Damon interview on Green Zone
• Movie locations on Google Earth