Green Zone (2010) **

 

In 2003 the U.S. was at war in Afghanistan, and we were contemplating war in Iraq. We had already fought Iraq 12 years earlier, driving them out of Kuwait as a stern warning to dictator Saddam Hussein. The narrative in 2003 was that the warning hadn't worked. Saddam continued to threaten the rest of the Middle East, and most importantly, he might be developing weapons of mass destruction, WMDs. Saddam had a history of using chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq war, so he was considered particularly prone to using chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, or even supplying them to terrorists. Despite U.N. monitors, we kept getting intelligence reports that Saddam had a secret WMD program.

And so, in 2003, we invaded, driving Saddam from power. As soon as we captured the capital, Baghdad, our intelligence agencies began the search for WMDs. It was a search that would prove fruitless. Whatever else Saddam was up to, no evidence was found that he was making chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons.

Why am I rehashing all that history? Because “Green Zone” is a fast-paced, fictionalized war movie about that WMD search, and it may be hard to follow if you don't have some knowledge of those circumstances. Matt Damon plays Chief Miller, head of a WMD team that keeps getting sent on dangerous missions to sites that turn out not to have any WMDs. Frustrated, he tries to discuss this with his superiors, but they tell him to keep quiet. The politicians back home promoted the war based on WMDs, and no one wants to hear that they might not exist.

Miller and his team stumble onto information about some Iraqi generals, and Miller begins to suspect that one of them may be the source of the WMD “intelligence” that led up to the war. Working with a CIA operative (Brendan Gleeson), Miller tries to track down the source one step ahead of rogue, American, political elements.

Directed by Paul Greengrass, “Green Zone” is based on the book Imperial Life in the Emerald City, an account of the war by journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Matt Damon is a compelling lead, and he pulls us through some pretty dense material. Like I said, you have to really pay attention to keep up with all the spy stuff. Some of the action scenes are poorly lit, and it can be hard to tell who is who. Given that the film had a $100 million budget, I assume this was intentional, meant to help the audience identify with Miller's disorientation in this confusing war.

It's actually a pretty gripping thriller, and all the confusion would be worth it if it were not for one thing: most of it never happened. If the movie were completely fictional, then there would be no problem. If it were a documentary, that would be cool, too. This mixing of fiction and fact, however, is problematic for me, because it has the potential to hijack the historical narrative. “Green Zone” isn't just a war story with the Iraq War serving as a background, like "The Hurt Locker,"  it's a fantasy about very specific events that led to America invading Iraq. Watching this film, a person could come away thinking they know things about the war that aren't true. It's a problem I have with many “based on true events” movies, where you can't see the line between fact and fiction. A good movie is so much more compelling than a dry news report that it's easy for the film's narrative to become what people believe. In the end, “Green Zone” is a decent action thriller, but not good enough to justify the creation of a false narrative about real events.

2 stars out of 5