The Big Picture
-
Green Zone
was a controversial film that explored the aftermath of the Iraq War and depicted the lies and lack of coherent intelligence of the US government. - The film received backlash from right-wing pundits who viewed it as anti-American, but also had defenders who felt it accurately captured the truth of the military’s experiences.
- Despite the controversy,
Green Zone
bombed at the box office and was one of the biggest blunders of Matt Damon’s career.
The film industry has always used recent events in American history to inspire some of its best films. In the 1970s, the events of the Vietnam War and the Nixon administration had a heavy influence on genre films that coped with the traumatizing headlines. The same has become true in the 21st century. Filmmakers struggled to justify making “genre entertainment” in a post 9/11 world when the “War on Terror” was being waged. After their success together with the Jason Bourne movies, director Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon channeled their efforts into the 2010 action film Green Zone, which explored the aftermath of the Iraq War in 2003. Green Zone became wildly controversial due to the strong political themes of the film. However, not everyone that had an opinion on Green Zone actually saw it, because the film became one of the biggest bombs of Damon’s career.
Green Zone
Discovering covert and faulty intelligence causes a U.S. Army officer to go rogue as he hunts for Weapons of Mass Destruction in an unstable region.
- Release Date
- March 12, 2010
- Cast
- Yigal Naor , Said Faraj , Faycal Attougui , Aymen Hamdouchi , Matt Damon , Nicoye Banks
- Runtime
- 115 minutes
- Writers
- Brian Helgeland , Rajiv Chandrasekaran
- Tagline
- Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller is done following orders.
What Is ‘Green Zone’ About?
Loosely based on the reporter Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s 2006 non-fiction novel Imperial Life in the Emerald City, Green Zone follows the US Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Damon) as he searches through the Middle East for the Iraqi military leader General Mohammed Al-Rawi (Yigal Naor). Miller’s primary mission is to find the supposed “weapons of mass destruction” that he has heard so much about from President George W. Bush’s public addresses. However, Miller finds that his investigation is impeded at every turn by the Department of Defense and the CIA. As Miller grows concerned about the intelligence that he is receiving, he begins to suspect whether these “weapons of mass destruction” actually exist at all. He becomes steadily convinced that the term “weapons of mass destruction” has been used as a scapegoat by U.S. military and political leaders to justify invading Iraq.
While this feels like the subject of a conspiracy thriller, the nature of America’s Iraq invasion was top of mind for audiences in 2010. In the Bourne films, Greengrass and Damon had used the conspiratorial angle to loosely comment on the nature of federal and military infrastructure, but Green Zone was a different beast entirely. There were no allusions in Green Zone. The film depicted a real, ongoing invasion, and presented a (somewhat) fictitious examination of the conflict. Using the loose premise of being an action thriller, Green Zone examines the systematic lies fueled by the White House, and presents the CIA (and whistleblowers like Miller) as the heroes exposing this “evil plot.” This immediately sparked outrage from many right-wing pundits who felt that the film’s themes were “anti-American.”
Why Was Matt Damon’s ‘Green Zone’ So Controversial?
As with any film that deals with overseas conflict, Green Zone was criticized by members of the military who viewed it as slander. In an op-ed for The New York Post, the former US serviceman Kyle Smith called the film “egregiously anti-American” for presenting the actions of the Bush administration in a negative light. However, the film also had its defenders, including Monty Gonzales, the real soldier that Damon’s character was based on. Gonzales felt that the film accurately captured the lack of coherent intelligence gathered by American military leaders ahead of the Iraq invasion.
While he didn’t necessarily frame it as a conspiracy thriller, Gonzales felt that Green Zone was accurate to the truth of his experiences, citing it as an “exciting Bourne in Baghdad” thriller. Both Damon and Greengrass were forced to go on the defense as they faced blowback from both political pundits and film critics. Damon argued that the film’s examination of the White House’s Iraq War policies was “a journey that we all went on and a fundamental question we all asked and it’s not partisan.” Opinionated filmmaker Michael Moorecalled Green Zone “the most honest Iraq War movie made by Hollywood,” and felt that it was “stupidly marketed as an action movie.”
‘Green Zone’ Bombed at the Box Office
Green Zone was expected to be a hit based on Damon and Greengrass’ success in the Bourne trilogy, but failed to draw in more than $95 million worldwide on a budget of $100 million. When considering the marketing costs and significant publicity campaign, Green Zone is one of the biggest blunders of Damon’s career. It started a rough period for the Bourne actor, in which he appeared in a number of critical and financial duds, including Hereafter, The Adjustment Bureau, We Bought a Zoo, Elysium, and Promised Land. Damon’s role as Mark Watney in Ridley Scott’s The Martian was essentially seen as his comeback.
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Green Zone was a box office disaster, but it inspired some interesting discourse within the film community. Reviews ranged from flat-out raves to complete pans, and the film’s mixed Metascore rating reflects just how divisive it really was. While some critics took issue with the film’s plotting and storytelling cliches, Roger Ebert awarded the film four stars, citing it as “a thriller that makes no claim to be based on fact, but provides characters and situations that have uncanny real-life parallels.” Unfortunately for Damon and Greengrass, the film’s divisive reviews may have steered away potential audiences. Perhaps the discourse about the film’s political subject matter discouraged action movie buffs from seeing Green Zone.
In comparison to other films about the Iraq War, Green Zone has aged very well. The film is able to explore the outrage that characters like Roy felt upon discovering that their government had lied to them, but never points its finger at any one individual. Green Zone suggests that the military-industrial system itself is to blame for the disaster in Iraq, yet never lionized the efforts of the CIA to the point of absurdity. It’s an unusually political blockbuster film, but for those who simply want to see Damon in one of the most underrated performances, Green Zone is still a great piece of entertainment.
Green Zone is available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.
