Green Zone is not Jason Bourne movie it was advertised as, so forget about that right away. Yeah, it's directed by Paul Greengrass and stars Matt Damon and Matt Damon plays a military action guy but that's where the similarities end. See, where Bourne was a gritty espionage action thriller, Green Zone is a gritty military political espionage action thriller. It's TOTALLY DIFFERENT. In Bourne, Matt Damon saves the day by beating a guy up with a rolled-up magazine. In Green Zone, he saves the day by sending a girl an email.
It's a good movie, and it challenges your assumptions quite a bit. It's the first Middle Eastern war movie that actually portrays the Middle Eastern-ers as real people (see Black Hawk Down for the opposite). A person could probably conduct an interesting study with this movie, examining the effects a person's political orientation has on their reaction to the movie and who they find sympathetic: the Iraqis, the members of the Bush Administration, or the CIA agents and journalists stuck somewhere in the middle of everything.
It's a complicated movie and a complicated subject that the cast and script do a great job of making accessible. Particularly excellent is Brenden Gleeson as the CIA agent in charge of Iraq or whatever. It's clear that he's playing a part here; his worn-in, rough at the edges character contrasts a little too easily with the slick Bushie character played by Greg Kinnear but dang it all if I care one bit. Also impressive: Amy Ryan is as Wall Street Journal writer and Khalid Abdalla as the one-legged Freddie.
Cost/Benefit analysis: Go see it, or maybe just rent it. It's good and might reopen a few old wounds. Personally it brought me back to the third hour art class I was in in 2003 when the war started. It might also spark and make you want to learn more about this war we're in, so watch at your own risk.
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