Green Zone is the third collaboration between director Paul Greengrass and actor Matt Damon. Previously, the two brought us The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. If you are hoping for another adrenaline laced conspiracy drama, this movie will meet you half way. There is conspiracy in excess, but the adrenaline-not so much.
The first half hour does a great job of depicting how unstable conditions in Baghdad were early on in the Iraq war. Greengrass ratchets up the tension and dread much like Kathryn Bigelow did in The Hurt Locker, by merely giving us a glimpse into everyday life after the initial destabilization of Iraq. Soldiers wear heavy uniforms in blistering conditions, and crowded city streets could easily be harboring suicide bombers or other dangers. Everyone is constantly and understandably on edge.
Unfortunately, during the second half of the movie much of the action takes place at night. Greengrass elected to film these scenes with his signature hand-cam, and these scenes are grainy, jarring and indecipherable.
I don’t mind watching documentary style film, and fortunately I don’t get sick from shaky cam (heed my warning, if you have any tendency to get nauseous during this type of camera work, this movie will do you in), but it is really annoying when you cannot see anything that is going on. I found my mind wandering to my mental list of chores during some really crucial chase scenes, because I just kind of gave up on trying to figure out what is going on.
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