Green Zone
It’s hard to believe that 2010 is already drawing to a close and so it’s time to take a look back over the year and some of the best movies that have graced the big screen.
And so it’s time the count the down the best of 2010, and boy has it been a great year for cinema!
We kick of our countdown with Green Zone, which sees Matt Damon reunite with Paul Greengrass, and while this movie did not receive the praise and success that it deserved it was the best war movie of the year.
During the U.S.-led occupation of Baghdad in 2003, Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Damon) and his team of Army inspectors were dispatched to find weapons of mass destruction believed to be stockpiled in the Iraqi desert.
Rocketing from one booby-trapped and treacherous site to the next, the men search for deadly chemical agents but stumble instead upon an elaborate cover-up that inverts the purpose of their mission.
Spun by operatives with intersecting agendas, Miller must hunt through covert and faulty intelligence hidden on foreign soil for answers that will either clear a rogue regime or escalate a war in an unstable region.
And at this blistering time and in this combustible place, he will find the most elusive weapon of all is the truth.
I know that the Iraq war movie hasn't exactly been the biggest hit with cinema go-ers and critics, apart from The Hurt Locker of course, but the Green Zone is another film that books that trend.
Yes this movie is fast paced, looks absolutely fabulous as well as boasting some great characters and a great action Green Zone is incredibly clever.
Greengrass has mixed the action that we have all come to expect from a movie of this genre and weaved it with a well crafted political story of lies, deceit and trying to uncover the truth.
Much like The Hurt Locker there's no 'Iraq is the enemy' or 'Americans are the best' but does question the reason why soldiers are fighting in the Middle East.
It's a mighty turn from Damon, who is tired of faulty intelligence that uncovers no WMD's, who has great moral fortitude and just wants the truth.
While many are expecting Bourne on a trip to Iraq Damon produces a completely different character as Greengrass focuses in on his cause and it's Damon that really propels the movie forward.
Sadly focusing solely on Damon Amy Ryan and Jason Issacs are desperately underused and this would be the only flaw in the film.
However there is a great rivalry between Brendan Gleeson, as Martin Brown who works for the CIA, who also wants the truth and Greg Kinnear's character Clark Poundstone, who is willing to hide the truth no matter what the cost.
Greengrass is really becoming one of the best filmmaker currently working in Hollywood as he has produced another visually stunning movie in the form of Green Zone.
He has produced a movie that's full of tension, suspense, questions and lies and mixed that in with the terror and the chaos in the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad.
The creation of this broken Baghdad is so realistic as the Americans barge into a country where they are not wanted.
And, much like Bourne, Greengrass is not afraid to get some hand held cameras into the action to place the audience right in the centre of the movie, which for this genre is a technique that works really well.
Green Zone is a high octane, edge of your seat thriller that mixes the exciting war genre with political intrigue.
Greengrass seems to get the best out of his leading man as Damon once again puts in a great performance, showing off why he is one of the best in Hollywood.
The movie mixes fact with fiction to produce an exciting, edge of your seat movie that could leave you with a few questions of your own.
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Tagged in Matt Damon