nan | 楠木

Green Zone opens hauntingly. It’s March 2003, and a group of senior officers in the Iraqi army are holding an emergency meeting. The coalition forces have began the bombing, and there are rumblings in the background. The meeting ends; the officers disperse, and they step outside you realize the extent of the bombings – the entire city of Baghdad is in flames.

It’s a particularly disturbing scene, in the sense that I was immediately reminded of the controversy surrounding the legality of the war. It is such a tremendous suffering for the Middle Eastern nation, which makes the question of “why?” even more pungent.

And this is all intentional – Green Zone isn’t at all shy to be politically charged. While the much-praised The Hurt Locker was all about subtlety and focused on the human story of the war, Green Zone is a cry of anger that specifically challenges the legality of the war, through a commercially palatable plot (Jason Bourne in Iraq!) to gain more audiences.

Critics have lamented the film for its weak plot. I think the fundamental flaw of the plot is that it tries to cover too much ground in 2 hours, and therefore loses a lot of plausibility – how can a low ranking officer (Matt Damon) uncover the whole fabrication of WMD intel in a matter of days on the ground? The compromise between plausibility and adrenaline-charged action was not well balanced, so while the film is generally engrossing and entertaining, it’s quite lacking in stimulating serious conversations.

On the plus side, Matt Damon is an obvious choice for his role. He brings natural credibility as the protagonist who just wants the truth, and the film doesn’t spend any time trying to build up his profile and background. To a large extent, the plot consciously leverages the image of Bourne – a man hunting for the truth.

At the end of the day, this is not award winning material in any sense – but it’s still a fairly enjoyable film and it carries a specific message. Worth checking out if you’re at all interested in the genre and topic.

7/10