Green Zone

Plot synopsis:
Bombs are exploding loudly outside a house. Inside, Iraqi men are mobilizing to leave, but waiting for General Al Rawi. As he leaves, he orders his men to meet him at the safe houses. Baghdad is under attack.Chief Roy Miller (Matt Damon) and his Mobile Exploitation Team (MET) are about to raid a site based on solid intelligence which has confirmed it as a site for chemical and biological WMD. Their job is to discover evidence of WMDs in Iraq, something the whole world and US is waiting anxiously for, as it is one of the sole reasons for the invasion. In their Humvees, they reach near the site where another army team, even though with a fairly large platoon, is unable to secure the place from civilian looters, who are grabbing and carrying anything they can get their hands on out of the site. Miller is trying to get his team into the site to deactivate and secure the WMD but is not given any assistance by the other team. It is very chaotic. They are told by the leader of the other team that there is a sniper holed up in the building site. After some tactical discussion, Miller and his team move in. They sniff out the sniper and take him down. After donning their masks and equipment, they survey the site in darkness, only to realize it was empty. Roy comments this is the 3rd straight time they have come up cold.Back in the airport, we see reporters gathering for the arrival of the soon-to-be appointed Iraqi minister. Lawrie Dayne, a WSJ reporter, goes to her source, Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear, a Pentagon Intelligence) and asks him for more tips on Magellan. He says he is trying but he has given her all he/s got and the information is very sensitive. She is quite unhappy about this; he ignores her and goes to greet the minister as they leave for the Green Zone (a secured place that was once Saddam's republic palace. Even them it is in parts and ruins). Poundstone is pushing an agenda of democracy for Iraq but it is constantly being challenged by the rampant chaos in the country. They have a meeting and animosity exists between Poundstone and a CIA Intel, Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson) who seems like a veteran in Iraqi affairs. Martin raises the issue to Poundstone that they cannot run Iraq on their own they need help from the old guard, and that they have yet to find WMDs. Poundstone disagrees and says its just a matter of time.Roy Miller returns to his camp and goes to look for his boss. He tells him that the intelligence does not seem to add up. His boss tells him nicely to shove it and says he cannot question the intelligence. Roy is not satisfied and at a group meeting, he brings it up, saying for the last few times all his team has gotten is a doughnut. He is shut up by being told that the intelligence source is reliable and all info has been verified, and that's that. Martin Brown is at this group meeting and as Miller leaves to check out another source, Martin approaches him and says he suspects the same and gives his number to Miller to contact him if anything crops up. Miller goes to the Al Mansour site (on the way they are mobbed by a huge crowd who are very angry because they have no water) and begins digging up holes to find the WMDs.Meanwhile, General Al Rawi and his old guard of senior ranking Iraqi army officers are meeting at one of the safe houses. They begin to discuss what to do with the American soldiers having invaded Iraq. General Al Rawi appears very calm and wise, and he advises that they wait and see. Unknowingly, an Iraqi civilian in that area going to his car has noticed the unusual group heading into the house. While Miller and his team are still digging holes, suddenly there is some commotion with one of Miller's officers. He goes to see what the problem is, and his soldier is sitting atop the Iraqi civilian with the limp, pushing his head into the sand. The man is struggling, obviously feeling very upset. Roy tells his men to ease off and the Iraqi civilian starts to rant at Miller. Miller waits for him to finish and calm down before asking him what he wants. The Iraqi says he has information to share but he did not expect to be treated like dirt for doing so. Miller asks what is it and the man says he saw this strange bunch of guys heading into the house, surrounded by bodyguards with AK-47s. Miller rounds his men up for an attack. One of Miller's men prefers to do things by the book and is quite reluctant to do anything outside of their orders. However, this time around, he gives in. Miller says they can't roll up in their Humvees and so they steal some beat-down cars and follow the Iraqi to the house. Just as they arrive they start to notice some of the participants are about to leave. They launch an attack and in the exchange, Miller spots General Al Rawi (who escapes by the back) and identifies him as the Jack of Clubs. They capture the meeting host, who has a little black book supposedly containing addresses of the safe-houses and plans. Roy interrogates the man, who says only Al Rawi has the info on WMD sites, the others do not know. Just as they are about to take the prisoners back, 3 army helicopters filled with special forces come in and bully the MET around. They take the prisoners away. Miller manages to sneak the book on Freddy to get it away from the Special Forces. Miller is puzzled how the Special Forces knew of their raid so quickly and why he was denied his only real lead on the WMD sites. Poundstone is informed of the capture, and he and Lawrie's arrangement sours, as he is unable to provide her with more updates.Miller gets the book back and calls Martin about it. Miller's team splits into 2 and agree to meet at the pool in the Republic palace, where they see people having fun, drinking beer and eating Dominoes pizza. Miller gives Martin the black book and says he needs to get to the meeting host because he knows where to find Al Rawi. Martin says he'll do what he can. Lawrie spots Miller and makes her move on him for info; he says he'll keep it in mind. In his room, he looks up her articles on the net and finds that her articles cites very similar coincidental sources of the WMD sites as his Intel brief does.The meeting host is being tortured for information. He keeps mentioning the book. Poundstone suspects Martin has it. Martin calls Miller and says he managed to get him into the prison. He gives him a million dollars to bribe the meeting host NOT to reveal anything to his interrogators (under Poundstone). Miller is surprised as he thought all Americans are on the same side; Martin tells him not to be naive. Miller and Freddy go to the prison and make up a story to see the meeting host. They find him severely injured from the torture. The meeting host asks Miller why he was treated like that; after all, didn't they agree at the meeting that they would be treated well? Miller asks which meeting, the meeting host says in Jordan. Meanwhile, Poundstone has gotten a Presidential order to raid the CIA office in Baghdad and retrieve the black book. Poundstone uses the black book addresses to hunt down the Iraqi guards to assassinate them.Miller goes to find Lawrie, and he puts the pieces together that the Magellan she is looking for is Al Rawi, who had earlier met Poundstone in Jordan and revealed the true status of Iraq's WMD program basically, there were none. No one verified the source or the information; she was fed it by Poundstone who used her to spread the news & propagate the myth. Miller realizes that Al Rawi is the only person now who can come out to put all into perspective, but Poundstone, in pushing his agenda of democracy, does not want his underhanded methods to surface he reneged on the promises he made to the Iraqi old guard, promising them a position in the new Iraq but actually he had no intention of doing so. If Iraq did not have an active WMD program in place, they were not a threat and the US should not have entered and basically they need to let Iraqis make up their own government (and not have US put a democracy there).The hunt for Al Rawi begins. Miller to find out the truth, and Poundstone and his men to cover the truth about WMD. Miller is captured by Al Rawi and tortured but he hears it from Al Rawi firsthand what went down in the meeting in Jordan. They are attacked and in the chase, Freddy comes out and shoots Al Rawi. He tells Miller to leave Iraq to the Iraqis to handle. Miller prepares to leave for home, but before he does so, he writes his Intel brief and sends it out to all the newspapers, saying lets get it right this time. His brief is the truth that there are no WMDs in Iraq. The democracy also fails, as none of the Iraqi groups want a puppet Iraqi president who is controlled by the US government.

Tags: action, murder, boring

Review:
Although the film is said to be inspired by the non-fiction book "Imperial Life In The Emerald City" by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a journalist for The Washington Post, the conspiratorial storyline is the invention of Greengrass who developed the original script.If the tension isn't as excruciating at that other Iraq movie "The Hurt Locker", at least "Green Zone" has a narrative and poses some questions, hard questions that many American viewers would probably were rather not aired: what was the source of the 'intelligence' that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction?
Marrying the political engagement of films such as 'Bloody Sunday' with the blockbuster attraction of the Bourne films, 'Green Zone' was always going to promise attractive viewing, and it doesn't disappoint.Matt Damon's character, Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, is in charge of an American Armed Forces unit in search of Weapons of Mass Destruction during the early stages of the Iraq conflict.
Some of the reviews I have seen complained about this style of cinematography, but I think Greengrass has managed to make the technique contribute to the content of his film, rather than becoming overly intrusive or threatening our cinematic experience.There is a delicious feeling of melodrama to the piece as a whole – the moustached Jason Isaacs as the sinister Special Forces operative provides a gripping counterbalance to the inquiring Matt Damon.
But it's more compelling than what the general's photo turned out to be.Matt Damon (as Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller) makes for a good lantern-jaw type hero...if such a figure actually exists, you'd think they would have have been run out of the ranks for not towing the official line.
I have no problem with a hand-held camera.As for the movie, 'Green Zone' is an excellent action thriller about a US Army Warrant Officer investigating the shady reasons why the military intelligence being fed to the Iraq Survey Group is failing to uncover weapons of mass destruction in post-invasion Baghdad.
He is no doubt thinking how fine it is for the US Army to hand him an entire country along with a treasury of several hundred million dollars.Miller is angry because he knows his intelligence is bogus, the CIA has told him that much, even though the Army vouches for it, and tells Miller to shut up and follow orders.The Pentagon puke tries to bribe Miller with a job if he plays along, and offers a veiled threat if he doesn't.The movie is history, and not a simple action adventure flick.
His obvious passion for the subject gives Green Zone the gravitas and grounding a film like this needs and with the exception of multi-Oscar winner The Hurt Locker and Ridley Scott's Middle Eastern thriller Body of Lies this is the strongest of the growing glut of such movies.Damon stars as Roy Miller, a chief warrant officer who is at the forefront for the search of WMD sites, all of which were gathered from a mysterious source known only as 'Magellan'.
In 'Green Zone,' the 'Bourne' action blockbuster team (led by Paul Greengrass and his star Matt Damon) goes to Iraq, or rather to a facsimile staged in Spain and Morocco, switching from a super-assassin's identity crisis to contemporary political and military history.It seemed like this might be the great Iraq movie Americans haven't had, a blockbuster as exciting and real-feeling as Bigelow's Oscar-winning 'Hurt Locker,' but with real political context.
The only surprise for me was the music that played during the credits.Overall, I'm a self-confessed sucker for Iraq/War movies (see Hurt Locker, Traitor etc.) but the action in this film does not save it from its poor use of story.
However, "Green Zone" blends truth with fiction about the inexistent weapons of massive destruction (WMD) that was the justification of the American government to invade that millenary country.The excellent Matt Damon is tailored for this type of action movie and performs the role of a captain of the American army pursuing the truth about the WMD in Iraq and finds a conspiracy with the involvement of a high level Pentagon representative.
I thought this movie was just another typical Iraqi War Based movie where the Americans(both leaders&Soldiers) are the good guys and Iraqi people are the bad asses to be kicked............But it turned out to be the only movie that has brought to light negatives and positives of both the sides(US and Iraq)........Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon kicked the hell out of the old stereotyped movies of heroes vs villains, to bring in a new genre of inside heroes vs inside villains..........The plot of the movie is really believable and the cast did a great job..........the action sequences and the areas were quite convincing..........The last line of freddy "It is not for you to decide what we do here" is an excellent one and it turns the whole perspective around.............WMD was a hoax to obtain oil,remove Saddam............Whatever it might be the movies like these bring in some light to the portions where people are made to know what they should know........This is the only film I have given 10/10 ratings among the Iraq War movies........I definitely think it is above the standards of Hurt Locker or any other movie in this genre..........Hats off to the Greengrass-Damon team for providing 3 most memorable movies..............
In the past few years there have been a handful of directors which have brought something to the genre of political/action/thriller movies that I had thought lost for good, namely class, quality and substance, actually ingredients I (and I guess others), would like to see in films of any category.
Though the topic might not be new, it has sparked my interest to take another closer and much more detailed look at what brought upon the whole sordid episode that is the war in Iraq, the ensuing events and the environment which they created.Though only loosely based on the book by journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran, "Imperial Life In The Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone",(a book which I am in the process of reading) the movie does touch on and brings forth the absurdity and folly of some of the parties involved in the decision-making process which led to the invasion of Iraq and its subsequent unravelling into chaos.The movie, though for obvious reasons, taking creative licence with the events and the topic, is at most a hint, a suggestion at some of the underlying causes for the ensuing mess that became Iraq.
He gets a lucky break in finding a lead on general Al Rawi (the Jack of clubs in the famous Iraqi card deck) and stumbles upon a secret that explain not only why there are no WMDs, but also why (or better said how) the Americans came to enter the war.As a movie it is a neat action film.
A captivating film on US-Iraq War. It was the time when the whole world wants to know whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and then US Army gets pressured to find evidences in Baghdad and other suspected nuclear facilities.It has a clear and understandable story line and I find the cinematography, dialogue and action scenes great.
Numerous plot twists and action sequences are going to unfold in front of Greengrass' camera not necessarily with new ideas but still awesome, making verbs just as deadly as a weapon.The directing is consistent: the legendary style of the director doesn't change whether he's filming the chase of a key character or just...
Labelled by many as "Jason Bourne in the real world", Green Zone is the latest Damon/Greengrass collaboration, and one which sees them tackling the ever present topic of the war on Iraq.Set during 2005, we follow Chief Miller, the man heading up the crew responsible for investigating reported sites of WMD storage.
The director famous for vomit inducing, queasy cam style film making is back, this time with Iraqi war action/thriller Green Zone.
This is a fantastic story that is a cross between an Iraqi War movie and political thriller.Matt Damon plays an officer responsible for following the military intel for WMD locales in the early days of the invasion.
The former was (is) a serious problem for the Middle East and all countries involved), and the latter became perhaps the biggest political mystery of recent times."How do you have highly detailed intelligence that's totally wrong?" – Michael Bronner, former CBS newsman and co-producer of Green Zone.What better backdrop for a political thriller by Paul Greengrass, director of the Bourne series and former director of the non-fiction current affairs program, World in Action?
Chief Miller (Matt Damon) leads Mobile Exploitation team Delta (MET D), a team responsible for tracking down WMDs after the invasion, and Greengrass hired MET A leader Monty Gonzales as a military adviser for the film."Once the reality on the ground changed from what we expected it to be, to what we discovered it to be, our mission became a search for the truth, rather than a search for weapons of mass destruction," says the chief.
Perhaps the final twist was not quite what would have happened in a Bourne movie, but Matt Damon gets a shoe-in as tough but taciturn Roy Miller, a mid-ranking Gulf War soldier tasked with finding WMD in a defeated Iraq.
Brendan Gleeson plays the CIA operative who befriends Miller and he is one of the best things in the film, although sometimes you feel that the characters around the Matt Damon tentpole are always going to be variations on a theme - not caricatures, because they;re too good for that - but recognisable types.
Green Zone is an intense action thriller with some flaws which I'll get into later from director Paul Greengrass who's admirable in making this movie that raises some questions concerning why we entered the war in Iraq.
Green Zone has a compelling story that raises some interesting questions, intense well paced action, drama, suspense, and solid performances by the cast (especially Damon, Kinnear, Gleeson, and Ryan) who make this film worth the time to watch..
"All they're interested in is something they can hold up on CNN.""Civil war in six months, I guarantee it.""Your government wanted to hear the lie.""It is not for you to decide what happens here."Place all that between "shock and awe" and "mission accomplished" and it sizes up the war in Iraq pretty nicely, doesn't it?Director Paul Greengrass' film about how things went so wrong in so many ways.
Working from Brian Helgeland's script ("inspired by" Rajiv Chandrasekaran's book "Imperial Life in the Emerald City"), Greengrass uses his trademark hand-held camera style (and that's a hand with a serious shake) to create what may be a new genre: the historical non-stop action drama.Matt Damon plays Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, whose unit is charged with finding WMD.
Great to see Helgeland taking risks and becoming brash with his script, not afraid to briefly show some truths in this war.Anyway, "Green Zone" is set three months after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and tells the story of how a chief warrant officer, Roy Miller (Matt Damon) goes rogue to seek out Weapons of Mass Destruction.
He starts to question the intel given to him, and even brings up at a meeting that they keep acting on false intelligence from which they don't even know the source.Other characters include CIA agent Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson), who works with Miller on finding the source of the false intel; Poundstone (Greg Kinnear), a US intelligence agent who tries to get in the way of Miller's rogue investigation; and a reporter (Amy Ryan) who is also questioning the claims of WMDs.It is directed by Paul Greengrass, who rose to fame with United 93 and the last two Bourne films.
It's what we experienced."The 'Green Zone' story is that of the search for WMD in Iraq; US Warrant Office Roy Miller (Matt Damon) leads a squad sent on mission after fruitless mission; eventually he becomes suspicious that the 'reliable intel' is at best wrong, at worst fabricated.
There are several 'real world' markers in the otherwise fictional story: the reporter for a national newspaper (in this case the Wall Street Journal) duped by the assured pronouncements of her inside source; the 30-year Iraqi exile coming triumphantly home only to discover that he is better known in Washington power circles than in Iraq; the mindless looting and rioting; the gas and water shortages; the increasing acrimony between rival religious sects; the hamfisted administration of the post-war reconstruction; the alternate universes separating the bikini- inhabited swimming pools inside the green zone and the privation and death going on just outside.The film has been both lauded and criticized as "Bourne goes to Baghdad", and so it is, a taut thriller set in the aftermath of the Coalition's invasion of Iraq - and it has as many alternate realities as any Ludlum novel: friends who turn out to be enemies, enemies who turn out to be friends, and other permutations as well.Yes, it's a potboiler, but it's fiction set within a universe that we all know, maybe a bit too well to call it escapist, and perhaps that's the reason for the disappointing box office.
'Green Zone' - which makes no claim of being based on true facts but looks and feels much closer to truth than many other movies that do - is both a very efficient thriller as well as a political statement.Officer Miller (Matt Damon , Greengrass's lead actor in the Bounty movies) is one of the many people the United States sent under uniform to fight for a war that history still needs to decide if it was a right or a wrong war, but almost everybody nowadays agrees that it started for the wrong reasons.
First they rolled out three very solid Bourne films, and now they've worked together on the notably less publicized Green Zone—a movie that wears its political agenda squarely on its sleeve.It's about Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon): a soldier who's gotten fed-up with participating in a string of failed missions to recover the now infamous Weapons of Mass Destruction that defined the early years of the Iraq War. After consulting with a CIA agent named Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson), Miller decides to take matters into his own hands and begins his own crusade to capture a high priority target— something the powers-that-be seem unwilling to do.
He is also working with CIA agent Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson), who is also looking for the general.Director Paul Greengrass keeps the action in this thriller running constantly, as Miller looks for the truth.The neocons won't like this because it shows them for the liars they are..
A superb film that will make audiences flock to movie theaters around the world and find out the truth.The plot: There's commanding officer Miller (Matt Damon), who heads a unit in charge of retrieving the WMDs from wherever intelligence from the Pentagon tells them to...but how weird is it, that they've already been to three sites containing highly dangerous weapons and there's nothing there?
Miller joins forces with the Middle East expert of the army Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson) in an attempt to uncover the truth behind the WMDs.This film is a thriller, and it DOES thrill audiences, Tom Clancy-style; but the true nerve-shattering aspect is the way we're treated to a vividly corrupt portrayal of the war in Iraq and to how the U.S., far from helping re-establish peace through its involvement in a foreign country's affairs, fabricated some dime-store democracy and fed it to the public.
This film is more like a documentary meant to shed light on the war in Iraq and to raise awareness through a good cinematic mélange of Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon.
The film is based upon the US's war on Iraq and its search for weapons of mass destruction which are believed to be hidden somewhere in Iraq itself,how much of the above fact is true forms the basis of the movie.Never before the truth has been searched for so deeply and sensibly especially by an American soldier itself.Matt Damon executes the role perfectly which is why i think nobody could have done the job better.the film questions the reasons which started the war in Iraq and beautifully depicts the flaws that exist in them.A deeply thought movie like this should never be missed especially when it concerns a serious issue,so after seeing THE GREEN ZONE i feel glad that i did not miss this no way short of a masterpiece....
Green Zone is his latest film, which isn't as good as some of his previous work, but it is still a very solid political thriller with a good performance from the always reliable Matt Damon.
In this fictional thriller set during the U.S.-led occupation of Baghdad, director Greengrass and screenwriter Brian Helgeland use Chandrasekaran's journalistic account as the foundation for the story of an officer who joins forces with a senior CIA officer to unearth evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) is certain that Hussein has been stockpiling WMDs in the Iraqi desert, but in their race from one empty site to the next, they soon stumble across evidence of an elaborate cover up.
"Green Zone" is a 2010 film starring Matt Damon and directed by Paul Greengrass based on the book by Rajiv Chandrasekaran.Matt Damon plays Roy Miller, a Chief Warrant Officer who in 2003 is sent to Iran to find weapons of mass destruction.He can't find any.The search for WMD was in part instigated by the Pentagon's man in Baghdad, Poundstone (Greg Kinnear).
Watching the trailer, one only gets a vague sense that the film it set in Iraq and that Matt Damon's character, Roy Miller, is searching for Weapons of Mass Destruction in 2003.
Chief Miller (Matt Damon) is the resolute hero of the story and his commitment to uncover the truth about WMD is the line of action the movie takes.