Green Zone (film)
Green Zone | |
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Directed by | Paul Greengrass |
Written by | Brian Helgeland |
Based on | Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Barry Ackroyd |
Edited by | Christopher Rouse |
Music by | John Powell |
Production company | |
Distributed by |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 115 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | $100 million[1] |
Box office | $94.9 million[1] |
Green Zone is a 2010 British action thriller film[2] directed by Paul Greengrass and written by Brian Helgeland, based on the 2006 non-fiction book Imperial Life in the Emerald City by journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran. The book documented life within the Green Zone in Baghdad during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.[3]
The key players in the film are General Mohammed Al-Rawi (
The film was produced by
Principal photography began in January 2008 in Spain, later moving to Morocco and the United Kingdom.Green Zone premiered at the
Plot
On March 19, 2003, Iraqi Army General Mohammed Al-Rawi flees his residence amid the bombardment of Baghdad. Before leaving the compound he passes a notebook to his aide Seyyed, instructing him to warn his officers to get to their safehouses and wait for his signal.
Four weeks later,
Meanwhile, US Department of Defense official Clark Poundstone welcomes returning Iraqi exile politician Ahmed Zubaidi at the airport. Wall Street Journal reporter Lawrie Dayne questions Poundstone and needs to speak directly to "Magellan" (based on real-life informant "Curveball"), but Poundstone brushes her off.
Meanwhile, while checking another unpromising site, Miller is approached by an Iraqi who calls himself "Freddy", who tells him that he saw some Ba'ath Party VIPs meeting in a nearby house. They include Al-Rawi and his officers and aides in Baghdad, who are discussing the current situation. Al-Rawi decides to wait for the Americans to offer him a deal and attack if they do not. As the meeting ends, Miller and his men raid the house. Al-Rawi narrowly escapes, but Seyyed is captured. Before Miller can extract much information, Seyyed is taken away by Special Forces operators who get in a fight with Miller's team. However, Miller keeps Al-Rawi's notebook.
Miller goes to Brown's hotel in the Green Zone, where he tells him what happened and gives him the notebook. Brown arranges for Miller to enter the prison where Seyyed is being interrogated. Dayne then approaches Miller, who questions him about the false reports of WMDs. Miller bluffs his way in to see Seyyed. Near death, after being tortured, he tells Miller that they "did everything you asked us to in the meeting." When Miller asks what meeting he is talking about, he says one word: "Jordan." Miller then confronts Dayne about the bogus intel she published, but she refuses to identify Magellan, her source. After Miller tells her he suspects Al-Rawi is Magellan, Dayne reluctantly confirms that Magellan met with a high-ranking official in February in Jordan.
Miller realizes that Poundstone's men are hunting Al-Rawi and can think of only one reason: Al-Rawi confirms there was no Iraqi WMD program and is now a major liability. Poundstone confiscates Martin's notebook, which contains the locations of Al-Rawi's safe houses. When Miller tries to arrange a meeting with Al-Rawi, he is abducted by Al-Rawi's men following Poundstone's announcement of the decision to disband the entire Iraqi Army. Al-Rawi tells Miller that he informed Poundstone that the WMD program had been dismantled after the Gulf War; Poundstone, however, reported that Al-Rawi had confirmed there were WMDs so the US government would have an excuse to invade. Poundstone's men attack the safe house, and Al-Rawi flees. Miller escapes his captors and races after Al-Rawi, finally capturing him, but Freddy suddenly shoots the general, telling Miller that "It is not for you to decide what happens here". With his only witness against Poundstone now dead, Miller tells Freddy to flee.
Later, Miller writes a scathing report. He confronts Poundstone in a meeting and gives him the report, but Poundstone dismisses it, telling Miller that WMDs do not matter. Poundstone then rejoins the meeting, only to see Iraqi factional leaders reject Zubaidi, the US's choice as leader of Iraq, as an American puppet and storm out. Afterward, Dayne receives Miller's report by email and a list of reporters for major news agencies worldwide.
Cast
- 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike.[7]
- Judith Miller."[3]
- Brendan Gleeson as Martin Brown, the CIA Officer and Baghdad bureau chief, loosely based on Jay Garner.[8]
- Paul Bremer, the "...Coalition Provisional Authority head in 2003–04...[3]
- Jerry Della Salla as Platoon Sergeant Wilkins
- Nicoye Banks as Perry
- Jason Isaacs as Major Briggs, a special operations commander on the hunt for high-value targets.[11]
- Martin McDougall as Mr. Sheen, CIA Baghdad assistant bureau chief.
- Michael O'Neill as Colonel Bethel
- Antoni Corone as Colonel Lyons[6]
- Tommy Campbell as the Chopper Comms Commander
- Paul McIntosh as a CIA officer
- Sean Huze as Sergeant Conway, a member of Roy Miller's MET team.[13]
- Robert Harrison O'Neil as a TV Journalist
- Ben Sliney as the bureaucrat at VTC
- Said Faraj as Seyyed Hamza
- Abdul Henderson as Marshall, a member of Roy Miller's MET team
- Raad Rawi as Ahmed Zubaidi, an Iraqi political exile based on Ayad Allawi
George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States appears in a cameo via television archive footage.
Production
Development
In January 2007, after completing The Bourne Ultimatum, director Paul Greengrass announced his intent to adapt a film of the 2006 non-fiction book Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a journalist for The Washington Post. Greengrass wrote a script based on the book, working with researchers Kate Solomon and Michael Bronner, who helped the director research for the 2006 film United 93. The script was reported to be developed more in advance than the script for The Bourne Ultimatum, which had undergone changes during production.[14] Screenwriter Tom Stoppard was originally requested to write the script for Greengrass, but because Stoppard was too busy,[15] screenwriter Brian Helgeland instead collaborated with the director to shape the film's premise.[6] Greengrass expressed interest in casting in the lead actor Matt Damon, with whom he had worked on The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum,[16] and the actor joined the project in June 2007.[17] Actors Amy Ryan, Greg Kinnear, and Antoni Corone were later cast in January 2008.[6] Greengrass said of the project's contemporary relevance, "Film shouldn't be disenfranchised from the national conversation. It is never too soon for cinema to engage with events that shape our lives."[16]
Themes and inspirations
Director Paul Greengrass has said that he first thought about making a movie about the subject of the war in Iraq rather than telling a particular story. Although he initially supported Tony Blair's justifications of the war, he became disillusioned over time. Greengrass carried out extensive research into the background to the conflict, reading journalists such as Bob Woodward, Seymour Hersh, James Risen, Thomas Ricks, and Ron Suskind, in addition to Rajiv Chandrasekaran, whose book he optioned. He has even compiled a document, How Did We Get It So Wrong?, detailing what he learned. Although Greengrass initially wanted to make a smaller film, he eventually decided a bigger budget production would expose more people to the ideas in the film.[10]
Addressing some of the contentions in the film, Greengrass has said that the arguments about
Greengrass has said that both the Bourne films and Green Zone reflect a widespread popular mistrust of authority that was engendered by governments that have deliberately lied and have let their citizens down over the Iraq war.[19] The confusion surrounding the absence of WMD in Iraq also provided an ideal scenario for a thriller, in which the protagonist battles for the truth.[18]
Filming
Production of Green Zone was originally slated to begin in late 2007.[14] Instead, it began at the Los Alcázares Air Base in Spain[20] on January 10, 2008,[6] moved to Morocco, and finished filming in the UK in December 2008.
Soundtrack
The original motion picture soundtrack was composed by musician John Powell, a frequent collaborator of Greengrass. Jorge Adrados mixed the sound elements for the chorus, while Jon Olive edited the film's music. The soundtrack for the film was released on March 9, 2010, by the Varèse Sarabande music label.[21]
Green Zone: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | ||||
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Film score by John Powell | ||||
Released | March 9, 2010 | |||
Length | 52:41 | |||
Label | Varèse Sarabande | |||
John Powell chronology | ||||
|
No. | Title | Length |
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1. | "Opening Book" | 2:32 |
2. | "1st WMD Raid" | 2:39 |
3. | "Traffic Jam" | 2:59 |
4. | "Meeting Raid" | 4:33 |
5. | "Helicopter/Freddy Runs" | 2:43 |
6. | "Questions" | 3:25 |
7. | "Miller Googles" | 1:55 |
8. | "Truth/Magellan/Attack" | 3:50 |
9. | "Mobilize / Find Al Rawi" | 5:17 |
10. | "Evac Preps Part 1" | 8:36 |
11. | "Evac Preps Part 2" | 3:24 |
12. | "Attack and Chase" | 5:26 |
13. | "WTF" | 1:16 |
14. | "Chaos/Email" | 4:17 |
Total length: | 52:41 |
Release
Green Zone opened in Australia and Russia on March 11, 2010. It was released in the United States and some other countries on March 12, 2010.
Home media
The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray in United States on June 22, 2010.
Reception
Box office
The film opened at No. 2 in the United States with $14.3 million in 3,003 theaters, averaging $4,765 per theater.[1] In the UK the film was the third most popular film of its opening weekend, selling £1.55 million worth of tickets (£2.07 million including previews). Comparing the relative opening weekend results of Green Zone and Shutter Island between the US and UK, Green Zone did twice as well in the UK as on the other side of the Atlantic.
Given its budget of roughly $100 million, in addition to its $40 million in marketing, Green Zone has been referred to as a flop for its production company
Critical response
Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reported an approval rating of 53% based on 186 reviews, with an average rating of 6/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass return to the propulsive action and visceral editing of the Bourne films – but a clichéd script and stock characters keep those methods from being as effective this time around."[26] Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 63 out of 100, based on 38 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[27]
The action in "Green Zone" is followed by Greengrass in the QueasyCam style I've found distracting in the past: lots of quick cuts between hand-held shots. It didn't bother me here. That may be because I became so involved in the story. Perhaps also because unlike the "
Bourne" films, this one contains no action sequences that are logically impossible.
Roger Ebert, writing for the Chicago Sun-Times[28]
Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film 4 stars and wrote that Green Zone is "one hell of a thriller."[28] James Berardinelli of ReelView gave the film 3.5 stars, stating that the "most rewarding aspect of Green Zone is the manner in which it interweaves fact and fiction into an engaging whole."[29]
Empire's Mark Dinning awarded the film 4/5 stars, concluding that "There is a murky morality in the whole sorry saga of Iraq. Some of the motivation is money, some of it is a genuine — if confused — desire for good. Reel can’t quite match real in portraying this aspect, but Green Zone will nevertheless provoke thoughts as well as thrills — it’s an honest, compelling, smart blockbuster that dares to deliver on several levels. And in that, at the very least, star and director are bang on target."[31]
Ilana Ozernoy in Newsweek criticized the film's "popcorn-crunching conventions" and simplification of the source material, writing "if Green Zone were an exercise in bubble-gum pop, I would have chewed happily. But it is Greengrass's insistence on making the thing look and feel authentic that made it all the more unbelievable."[32]
Writing for The Boston Globe, Wesley Morris was critical of the film's mixture of style and tone. "If tremulous 100-yard-dash camerawork is Greengrass’s voice, this sort of movie might not be the song for him. Helgeland’s script doesn’t just suspect conspiracy. It’s certain there is corruption. And righteousness doesn’t suit the illusory objectivity of the director’s docu-realism."[33]
In the UK, Tim Robey in The Daily Telegraph conceded that "with all we retrospectively know about the wool-pulling to make the case for war, it's a kick to follow a main character on the ground who smells a rat"; he nevertheless criticized the film for lacking credibility in its portrayal of a rogue hero who never faces a reprimand and never suffers paranoia.[34]
More enthusiastically,
Accolades
The film was nominated for a Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Feature Motion Picture but lost to another Matt Damon film, Hereafter.[36]
Political reaction
Green Zone is seen as a political film,
Richard "Monty" Gonzales, the person on whom the character of Roy Miller was loosely based, commented that both sides of the political spectrum have reacted disproportionately and any political controversy is unwarranted.
Greengrass defended his film in an interview with Charlie Rose, saying, "The problem, I think, for me is that something about that event strained all the bonds and sinews that connect us all together. For me it's to do with the fact that they said they had the intelligence, and then it emerged later that they did not."[40] Matt Damon also defended the film, telling MTV News, "I don't think that's a particularly incendiary thing to say. I think that's a journey that we all went on and a fundamental question we all asked and it's not partisan."[45] Filmmaker Michael Moore commented: "I can't believe this film got made. It's been stupidly marketed as an action film. It is the most HONEST film about the Iraq War made by Hollywood."[46]
References
- ^ a b c d e f "Green Zone (2010)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved August 20, 2010.
- ^ "Green Zone is go". Euronews.
- ^ a b c Todd McCarthy (April 3, 2010). "Green Zone review". Variety. Retrieved February 2, 2012.
- ^ a b Rovi: Green Zone - countries, produced by, released by Archived 2013-01-17 at archive.today Retrieved November 4, 2012
- ^ a b c "Green Zone". Working Title Films. Archived from the original on March 3, 2008. Retrieved March 12, 2008.
- ^ a b c d e f g Michael Fleming (January 9, 2008). "Amy Ryan set for Greengrass thriller". Variety. Retrieved January 22, 2008.
- ^ Michael Fleming (August 10, 2007). "Rush to judgment". Variety. Retrieved January 22, 2008.
- ^ Fleming, Michael (March 12, 2008). "Brendan Gleeson Enters Green Zone". Variety. Retrieved March 12, 2008.
- ^ Amir Kaminer (23 April 2008). "Yigal goes to Hollywood". Ynet.
- ^ a b Rose, Steve Paul Greengrass: the betrayal behind Green Zone The Guardian, 8 March 2010
- ^ Adam Dawtrey (March 11, 2008). "Gleeson takes final lead in 'Zone'". Variety. Retrieved March 8, 2008.
- ^ Arifa Akbar (January 16, 2008). "My acts of defiance". The Independent.
- ^ Hollywood supports troops, if not the war Archived 2009-03-01 at the Wayback Machine Politico
- ^ a b Adam Dawtrey (January 21, 2007). "Greengrass lines up Iraq movie". Variety. Retrieved January 22, 2008.
- ^ Richard Brooks (August 12, 2007). "The Bourne Ultimatum – Biteback". The Sunday Times.
- ^ a b Ali Jaafar (December 4, 2007). "Paul Greengrass". Variety. Archived from the original on January 29, 2008. Retrieved January 22, 2008.
- ^ Diane Garrett (June 6, 2007). "Damon, Greengrass re-teaming". Variety. Retrieved January 22, 2008.
- ^ a b Faraci, Devin The CHUD Interview: Paul Greengrass (Green Zone) Archived 2010-03-17 at the Wayback Machine Chud
- ^ Paul Greengrass interview Lovefilm
- ^ Sobre Cine. "sobrecine.com". Archived from the original on 2010-07-12.
- ^ Green Zone Soundtrack. Amazon. Retrieved August 7, 2012.
- ^ "Green Zone Blu Ray Review". The Film Stage. June 14, 2010. Archived from the original on August 22, 2010. Retrieved February 2, 2012.
- ^ Hokenson, Christian (June 21, 2010). "Blu-ray Review: Green Zone". HD Report. Retrieved September 27, 2016.
- ^ Corliss, Richard (March 14, 2010). "Alice turns Damon a sickly Green". Time. Archived from the original on March 16, 2010. Retrieved March 15, 2010.
- ^ Gant, Charles Alice, Shutter Island and Green Zone shut out rivals at UK box office The Guardian, March 16, 2010
- ^ "Green Zone". Rotten Tomatoes. 12 March 2010. Retrieved January 3, 2019.
- ^ "Green Zone Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved March 12, 2010.
- ^ a b Roger Ebert (March 10, 2010). "Green Zone". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved March 12, 2010.
- ^ "Green Zone". ReelViews. March 10, 2010. Retrieved March 12, 2010.
- ^ "Movie Review – Green Zone – A Search for That Casualty, Truth". New York Times. March 12, 2010. Retrieved March 12, 2010.
- ^ "Empire's Green Zone Movie Review". Archived from the original on 10 June 2014.
- ^ Ozernoy, Ilana Matt Damon's War Film Green Zone Doesn't Ring True Newsweek, March 10, 2010
- ^ Morris, Wesley On the verge of explosion: Matt Damon chases down WMDs in ‘Green Zone’ The Boston Globe, March 12, 2010
- ^ Robey, Tim Green Zone, review The Daily Telegraph, March 11, 2010
- ^ "Green Zone is one of the best war films ever made". Standard.co.uk. 10 April 2012. Retrieved 23 January 2018.
- ^ "9th Annual VES Awards". visual effects society. Retrieved December 22, 2017.
- ^ Fisher, Luchina. "Tom Hanks Angers Conservatives, Comparing 'The Pacific' in World War II to Iraq". ABC News. Retrieved March 14, 2013.
- ^ Koch, Ed (2020-03-16). "'Green Zone': Disappointing, Even if You Share Its Politics". The Atlantic.
- ^ New York Times. Archived from the originalon 2014-03-19.
- ^ a b c Piazzo (March 11, 2010). "Critics Decry Matt Damon Movie 'The Green Zone,' Calling It 'Anti-American'". Fox News. Retrieved March 12, 2010.
- ^ a b Gonzales, Richard "Monty" The Truth About "Green Zone", Fox News, March 13, 2010
- ^ Davlin, Melissa From Army Officer to Movie Consultant Military.com, Jan 16, 2009
- ^ Matt Damon chats about new role Archived 2012-03-11 at the Wayback Machine Perth Now, March 10, 2010
- ^ Denselow, James (March 14, 2010). "Bourne in Baghdad". The Guardian. London. Retrieved March 14, 2010.
- ^ Ditzian, Eric and Josh Horowitz (March 10, 2010). "Matt Damon Addresses Political Criticism Of 'Green Zone'". MTV. Retrieved March 12, 2010.
- ^ Moore, Michael. "I can't believe this film got made. It's been stupidly marketed as action film. It is the most HONEST film about Iraq War made by Hollywood". Twitter. Retrieved 23 January 2018.
External links
- Official website
- Green Zone at IMDb
- Green Zone at AllMovie
- Green Zone at Rotten Tomatoes
- Green Zone at Metacritic
- Green Zone at Box Office Mojo