Green Zone

Released in theaters mere days after The Hurt Locker cleaned up at the 2010 Academy Awards, Green Zone offered another take on the Iraq War action-thriller, this time presenting a more straightforward plot-driven narrative courtesy of the Bourne acting/directing team of Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass, respectively. Set at the "shock and awe" start of the conflict in ‘03, the film follows inquisitive Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Damon) as he gets fed up with leading his troops into volatile Baghdad locations reportedly containing weapons of mass destruction, only to repeatedly turn up empty-handed. Deterred by a smarmy bureaucrat (Greg Kinnear) and aided by cranky CIA operative (Brendan Gleeson) and a patriotic Iraqi (Khalid Abdalla), Miller lunges headlong into the WMD investigation, landing in occasionally implausible, but always engaging, confrontations. While the film, which freely blends fact and fiction, has an undeniable leftie angle, politics are tempered by kinetics, with Greengrass effectively depicting the chaos of Baghdad under siege in numerous nail-biting scenes. Knowing the outcome of the whole WMD scenario may curb Green Zone's element of mystery, but that doesn't hinder its status as an above-average action movie with an extra bit of heart and conscience.