Victor Grippi – The Atomic Writer

This movie is very intense on multiple levels and when you realize Paul Greengrass, director of the Bourne Identity movies had something to do with it, then you know why. The story centers on the first few weeks of the Iraqi war where in March of 2003 we, the US, invaded Baghdad due to reports of WMD’s; you know the nasty weapons Saddam Hussein supposedly was building and hiding all over the country. We initially claimed victory and thought we could okie-dok them into creating a democracy and them wham-bam thank you Saddam, we had a partner in the middle east. Well, in case any of my readers, who I hope do actually exist and not just in my mind, have been living under a rock, we are still there after seven years with no end in sight.

Matt Damon plays Roy Miller a chief warrant officer for the Army who keeps coming up empty handed at sites given to him by bad intelligence. He begins to doubt the existence of WMD’s and the story is based on finding out the truth as Miller goes rogue in the hunt for the truth. Miller tries to sound the whistle but is hushed up by the upper brass. He then meets an Iraqi citizen, Freddy, who tips him off to where a secret meeting is taking place with some high valued targets. Miller then recognizes one of Saddam’s generals, Al Rawi, and decides to hunt him on his own with the help of some renegade CIA operatives. A lot of the action is with a handheld camera and it gives the sense of actually being there.

But this is not Jason Bourne and he is not on the run from the government. The marketing made it sound that way. The first and second acts are carefully plotted out with both the CIA connection and the elusive Magellan character, the reported source of the intelligence, providing a compelling story to draw us in. The climax of the movie did fall flat and devolved into several long action sequences with no real payoff. Miller finds out that Al Rawi, Saddam’s General, is Magellan, and all he wants is the truth. Well all he gets is the truth in the form of Al Rawi’s statement that there are no WMD’s and : “just because you have taken Baghdad doesn’t mean who’ve won the war,” rings true after seven years. Then Freddie pops Al Rawi a couple of times and reminds Miller that the US does not decide what happens in his country (Iraq).

This movie chronicles a fictional story of why we invaded Iraq. WMD’s were just an excuse to go to war with a country rich in oil. Sure Saddam Hussein was a terrible mass murderer, promoter of terrorism that perhaps ended up on our shores, and all around bad guy. But why not invade for those reasons alone? Why drum up this story of weapons of mass destruction ready to be used against friends and allies of this great country. Perhaps it’s due to the age we live in. An age where war is not fought against geographic entities calling themselves countries, but between ideologies who call themselves human.

A major flaw with The Green Zone is that we are constantly reminded of the WMD conspiracy at every turn of the story. They didn’t exist, we know this, so let’s move on. The action is great with long sequences of heart pounding thrills as we experience the grief of war within a post 911 battlefield.

I think the closing image of The Green Zone is worth noting. We see a long straight highway leaving Baghdad full of Humvee’s traveling towards an oil field. The closing image says it all.

Remember, never stop looking up at the night sky and asking…what if.

Victor Grippi
The Atomic Writer