By Ryan Parsons | Image property of 20th Century Fox
While I was a huge fan of how the Bourne trilogy finished off, that didn't mean I was going to blindly give my loyalty to Green Zone, the latest Greengrass/Damon thriller involving a lot of shaky cam. The trailers looked okay, but there wasn't anything that had me completely sold.
Green Zone Reviewed
And now the first reviews don't have me all that convinced either. While they do claim that the film is at least "good," they do so while comparing it to other failed Iraqi war movies. Wha? Well, at least THR gives kudos to the film's style and thrills.
Variety
So vivid and convincingly realistic is the physical depiction of Baghdad in the early days of the American occupation that the introduction of trumped-up thriller elements feels like an unwanted intrusion in "Green Zone." A companion piece to "United 93" as a portrayal of American reaction -- this time misguided -- to 9/11, Paul Greengrass' high-voltage action drama does a better job of defining where the U.S. went hopelessly wrong on Iraq than it does in creating a plausible suspense scenario. The acclaim for "The Hurt Locker" notwithstanding, the commercial jinx of Iraq War stories has yet to be broken, although, with a vigorously virile Matt Damon leading the charge, this Universal release should go a bit further at the B.O. than its predecessors.
Green Zone
THR
An energetic, frenzied thriller -- Paul Greengrass-style -- set in Iraq in the chaotic post-invasion days.
In "Green Zone," director Paul Greengrass brings the frenetic, run-and-gun style with which he utterly transformed the movie thriller in the Jason Bourne series to a different kind of thriller, one with a sharper political edge. For "Green Zone" explores the Bush administration's willingness to embrace palpable lies over murky truths in order to sell the Iraq War to the American public.
Check out the full reviews for Green Zone by clicking the bold links above.
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