Watch Green Zone For Free

The Age of Commercialism

Captivating movie !

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

First things first. This is a thriller/action movie, regardless of the negative reviews from predominantly right-wing US reviewers.What I find particularly hilarious is that the same people will eat up the garbage of 13 hours and American Sniper as 'factual' because it suits their own political agenda, but decry anything that even remotely goes against that with the usual whining of 'Anti- American'. Here's a thought. Don't invade a sovereign nation illegally under false motives and people won't despise your nation for doing so.The movie itself is a well acted, scripted affair. I didn't actually notice the 'hand camera shakiness' until I started reading negative reviews on here. Apparently, I, like many other adults, are capable of following the movements of other human beings on the screen without them being tied to a rail. Who'da thunk it?Gritty, confusing and twisted sums up the storyline and Damon delivers once again. Greg Kinnear delivers his usual double-dealing politician role with gusto and Brendan Gleeson nails the image of the cynical, world-weary spook.Special mention must be made of Khalid Abdalla or 'Freddy'. He brings a poignant humanity to the movie with his ex-military Iraqi character, interested only in the welfare of his nation as a whole.Naturally, many will decry this as 'left wing propaganda', but we've been over that already. Make your own mind up. Do a bit of research about the joke that was the US intelligence effort prior to 2003. Watch the movie. Realise the debacle that Bush's war was and then tell me who's at fault.

Having absolutely adored the previous two collaborations between star Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass, I was more than pumped to get hold of this follow-up, a war-based thriller set during the days when the west still believed that weapons of mass destruction existed in Iraq. This turns out to be a solid, thought-provoking film; it can't hold a candle to BOURNE, but then it doesn't want to – it's a different beast entirely! Instead, it tackles the complicated situation of American intelligence in Iraq, throwing in seemingly disparate elements like a crippled Iraqi patriot, one of Saddam's top generals, a shady high-level operative and a gruff CIA boss. Once the plot strands come together the film explodes into life, with the last section a pulse-pounding journey through the narrow streets of Iraq with bullets and explosions going off all over the place.Greengrass is in his element with this kind of movie. His direction is sound as ever, with particularly well handled action bits and interesting exposition, too. Damon seems an odd choice at first for the soldiery central role but he turns out to be a god send in the part – very human, very flawed, but a man whose stubborn nature will see him through. There's a trio of meaty supporting roles for the likes of character actors Brendan Gleeson, Jason Isaacs, and Greg Kinnear and some very decent turns from the Arab actors as well.As for the plot…watching feels a little weird, as in retrospect every viewer will know that there were never any WMDs, so Damon's surprise on discovering this is a little muted. Still, I found the handling of the characters to be particularly moving, especially Freddy and also the general, guys who genuinely love their country and will do anything to see peace restored. Who'd think you'd end up moved by a war-based thriller set during the invasion of Iraq?

There are still a few delusional souls out there who believe that United States' invasion of Iraq was a justified move & not an excuse to pursue its own interests. Using the veil of democracy, America went to war despite opposition from United Nations and, in the process, didn't just destabilise the entire Middle-East but also plunged Iraq into total chaos.Green Zone is a valiant attempt to show the corruption within the then-functioning US government and argues that the whole "disarming Iraq from weapons of mass destruction" was a charade, that the Bush administration manipulated evidence in order to gain public support, and that America itself is responsible for the sorry state Iraq has been in ever since.The story of Green Zone follows Roy Miller, the U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer whose platoon is assigned the duty of finding the so-called weapons of mass destruction but discovers nothing for several times in a row. Things are set in motion when, after meeting with a CIA veteran, Miller goes rogue in order to find the truth and ends up excavating much darker secrets than expected.Directed by Paul Greengrass (best known for Bloody Sunday, United 93 & The Bourne Ultimatum), Green Zone begins with an explosive prologue depicting the air strike on the Presidential Palace in Baghdad, following which the main plot surfaces. The film mixes fictional & factual elements into a single storyline but it isn't as effective as expected and feels more like Jason Bourne in Iraq than what it's supposed to be.The camera-work & editing aspects carry Greengrass' signature all over it. Production design team does a splendid job at recreating the post-invasion setting. Matt Damon does well in his given role yet he feels like a miscast because the effect of the previous collaboration between Greengrass & Damon spills into this feature and prevents it from making its desired impact, not to mention that the action in the second half is highly reminiscent of Jason Bourne flicks.On an overall scale, Green Zone is thought-provoking on more levels than one, remains intense for the majority of its runtime, and is expertly steered by Greengrass' smart direction & Damon's solid performance and yet, the very jolt that was expected given its subject matter is somewhat missing. It probably would've worked better if it had taken the route of a political thriller than an action flick, in addition to further polishing its script & adding more interesting characters. Definitely a missed opportunity.

United 93 director Paul Greengrass explores the aftermath of the Iraq invasion in this feature adaptation of author Rajiv Chandrasekaran's literary exposé Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone. A onetime Baghdad bureau chief of the Washington Post, Chandrasekaran was present as American forces attempted to set up a provisional government on the grounds surrounding former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's opulent palace. The resulting governing body, according to critics, existed in a bubble so far-removed from the grim realities of the Iraq War that it failed to properly assess the needs of the people. In this fictional thriller set during the U.S.-led occupation of Baghdad, director Greengrass and screenwriter Brian Helgeland use Chandrasekaran's journalistic account as the foundation for the story of an officer who joins forces with a senior CIA officer to unearth evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) is certain that Hussein has been stockpiling WMDs in the Iraqi desert, but in their race from one empty site to the next, they soon stumble across evidence of an elaborate cover up. As a result, Miller realizes that operatives on both sides of the conflict are attempting to spin the story in their favor. Now, as Miller searches for answers made ever more elusive by covert and faulty intelligence, the truth becomes the most valuable weapon of all. Will those answers prove pivotal in clearing a rogue regime, or escalate the war in a region that grows increasingly unstable with each passing day? Amy Ryan co-stars as the New York Times foreign correspondent who travels to Iraq investigating the U.S. government's allegations about weapons of mass destruction, with Greg Kinnear appearing in the role of an additional CIA officer, and Antoni Corone essaying the role of a colonel.