Green Zone User Reviews

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 Holly from The Office and Jason Bourne

When I finished watching my Netflix rental of Green Zone with Matt Damon, the first thing I wanted to do was…well, actually I wanted to go to sleep because it was 2am. But I couldn’t! I wanted more. Now the movie is not the greatest thing I’ve ever seen, but I found it to have great action (especially the opening sequence) and a decent enough story. And sometimes that’s all that a movie needs to be enjoyable.

The story revolves around Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Damon) on missions during the Iraq War to find WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) in the Green Zone (an area of Baghdad with international authority). After completing multiple missions without success, Miller starts to question the source of the information, “Magellan” and the orders he is given to continue the hunt for WMD. During one such mission, a civilian tip brings Miller and is team to a meeting between former military leaders of Sadadm Hussein. A high value target escapes and the rest of the film involves Miller searching for this man.

While the story is pretty good, this is still a movie and is fiction. Even though the film is loosely based off the book Imperial Life in the Emerald City, this is not an accurate account of what happened back in 2003. It's just a film.

That aside and speaking of fiction, there is a point in the film when Miller decides he is going to go rogue and basically do whatever he feels necessary to reach his goal with no repercussion once so ever for his actions. I know a Chief Officer is high ranking (I think anyways), but he still has superiors and this wasn’t explained at all. Movies are far-fetched sometimes, but the first half is more based in reality while the second half turns into Bourne in Iraq, which is a little confusing.

 MATT DAMON

But, as a fan of action and war movies, I’ve got to say I really enjoyed this one. It took a lot of criticism for its liberal view of the war (as a Republican I honestly could care less) and overuse of shaky cam (which I really didn’t notice). Maybe I'm crazy, but I like this Action-thriller.

Blu-ray/DVD Side Notes:

• The quality is very grainy at times, especially at night time.
• One of the features is a 10 or so minute behind the scenes with Damon and the crew. What was extremely interesting is that all the “actors” playing the soldiers under Damon’s command are not actors at all. They are actual Iraq War veterans, and some even had to go back on tours after filming!
• This little feature talks about how the soldiers had to accept Damon as their commander so that they wouldn’t be rolling their eyes and such when he barked orders at them, since they were really in battle at one point.
• Great commentary between Damon and Greengrass (director), in which Damon talks more about the soldiers on the film.
• Blu Ray’s are still expensive so I keep my collection limited to action and war films/shows. This one will definitely be added to that collection.