Review of Green Zone

By now it is basically a fact that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction and that the United States government under the Bush administration falsified evidence in order to invade Iraq. Now to what extent Bush and Cheney knew that there were no operational WMDs is not clear. Perhaps they were lied to by other high ranking government officials or perhaps they knew the entire time that Iraq posed no immediate threat. Paul Greengrass' Green Zone pulls out all the punches in the direction of the Bush Administration and openly declares the Bush administration as war criminals for sending troops to Iraq without proof of any WMDs. Intertwined with the political statements are intense action sequences, in which Greengrass uses a shaky handheld camera style (as seen in the last two Bourne movies and United 93) to add a sense of realism to the film.

Personally I enjoy action sequences in long, progressive takes such as the action scenes in Children of Men because it allows the viewer to feel as if they are right along side the characters (the camera acts as the eyes of the audience) without any cuts between takes. In my opinion, longer takes allow the viewer to become more fully engrossed within the cinematic experience. However, there are benefits to the quick editing found in all of Greengrass' films. First of all the fast paced cuts and shaky camera may not make you feel like you are personally watching the action, but you do feel as if the camera is actually part of the story. Whenever I watch a Greengrass film I almost feel as if I am watching a documentary because of the handheld camera use. I sometimes forget I'm viewing a multi-million dollar motion picture and not the nightly news. The documentary style used by Greengrass worked perfectly in United 93 because the filmmakers were attempting to recreate the events of 9/11 as realistically as possible. The problem with Green Zone is that it pretends to be a documentary, yet the events it covers are fiction. Even if some of the events that take place were true, Green Zone tries so hard to make political statements that it is often hard to take it seriously.

Overall, Green Zone is not as entertaining as the Bourne trilogy, but it still remains an effective and thoughtful thriller. So although the action scenes may give you a headache, it is hard to not be impressed by the original and fast paced camera work.

RATING: 3.4/5.0

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