It's too bad nobody wants to see movies about the Iraq war because Green Zone, the latest aggro action-adventure flick from director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy, Flight 93), is a good one. A re-Bourne Matt Damon delivers a command performance as chief warrant officer Roy Miller, a good man on the hunt for WMD in Iraq in the days immediately following the March 2003 U.S. invasion. The actor is in damn-near every frame of this movie, and he provides a solid center that keeps the audience grounded during long stretches when Greengrass' epileptic camera, low-light conditions and explosions aplenty can leave you feeling shaken and confused. Though more outwardly political than, say, The Hurt Locker (a movie with no viewpoint at all), Green Zone is primarily interested in telling an entertaining yarn about boys chasing and shooting at one another, and uses the not-so-hot-button issues from the war as a tableau. As such, Green Zone is a winner.
This article appears in Mar 10-16, 2010.