03/13/10 - Green Zone

Green Zone (2010, 115 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0947810/

The first movie that I check out over Spring Break is Green Zone. While I'm not particularly thrilled by the looks of this movie, I agree to check it out anyway. So: I have low expectations. We'll see if they're met.

The film stars Matt Damon as Miller, a member of the US Special Forces who is tasked with finding Weapons of Mass Destruction. After repeated failures, he gets caught up in a complicated plot involving a member of the Pentagon in Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear). Helping Miller are: Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan), a member of the press and Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson) a member of the CIA.

My biggest complaint about this film is how predictable it is. It doesn't hold back in how it wants to tell its story and, to be honest, it's a story I've seen time and time again. It's not original but it's hard to knock the film for that because I don't think it's trying to be original but instead trying to make a point. But it just fails completely at this. I end up not caring for any of the characters and it just forces its beliefs and agenda down my throat as a viewer. This all adds up to a few things: I don't care for the characters because of how predictable it is; it doesn't convince me to change my view on the subject because it presents its viewpoint poorly; and finally I want it to end quickly. I cannot stress how poor the plot to this movie is as even after about twenty minutes you know exactly how everything will end. I'm usually terrible at figuring out endings (I usually just sit back and let the movie entertain me without trying to figure out the ending really) but this one was so bad that even I got it relatively quickly.

My next major complaint is the camera. Just like we had in some of the Bourne movies, there's the herky-jerky style of filming with the hand-held camera. I hated it in Bourne and I hate it here. To be blunt: it just doesn't add anything. To add to this atrocity, in Green Zone, we occasionally get a really grainy camera for some reason. Was this supposed to make the film more gritty and real? Is a low quality average camera supposed to make me like the scene more than the standard fare? Whatever the reason, it's again a failure.

Now for the positives of Green Zone: Matt Damon. Damon is always good in whatever he does and this is no exception. Green Zone is a pretty weak movie in everything but his acting. Even Kinnear and Gleeson are forgettable and bad in the film and Ryan is pathetic in her role. But Damon shows why in my opinion he will go down as one of the actors of the generation. He tries to work with the terrible movie and make it likable. I mean, in the end he fails but it's no fault of his own.

Overall, I gave this film a 3/10. There's not many positives for Green Zone. It occasionally works but with a terrible plot and pointless characters and overall bad acting there's not much there. Damon redeems it a few times but overall I leave disappointed - even after coming in with such low expectations.