Iraq war films are very unpopular with audiences. Hurt Locker is now wiping its ass with Oscars, sure, but it didn’t do well financially. People don’t want to see films about Iraq because they’re a reminder that everything is fucked. Stack a hefty recession on top of that and folks simply aren’t paying to be bummed out. Remember what a disaster Lions for Lambs was? But director Paul Greengrass (last two Bourne films) doesn’t seem to be out to educate or bum out audiences with Green Zone. It’s about how hyped up WMDs were and how there actually weren’t any. But everyone knows that. The plot of Green Zone may be too little too late, but that doesn’t stop it from being seriously entertaining.

Greengrass teams up with Matt Damon once again to deliver a perfectly paced, action thriller filled with politics and shaky cam out the ass. His frequent overuse of shaky handhelds has always been my only issue with Greengrass. I love the Bourne films, but the handheld work gets terribly nauseating. So against this background, Greengrass simply drops in Matt Damon as warrant officer Roy Miller and BAM…you’ve got a Jason Bourne film set in Iraq. It’s brilliant. Miller becomes this frustrated personification of the American. He goes “rogue” on his search for the truth. Anytime a movie involves someone “going rogue” I’m on board. It could be about a “rogue ice cream man” and I’d watch. Actually, that sounds awesome.

The cast also includes Greg Kinnear, Brenden Gleeson (who’s always amazing), and Amy Ryan as a journalist with a ponytail. Every female war correspondent in movies rocks a ponytail. Fact. The movie is based on the nonfiction book Imperial Life in the Emerald City, written by former Washington Post Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Greengrass lightly brushes aside the politics and scandal of the book which people have already digested and brings in Bourne. Which is exactly what I want from a Greengrass film.

- Oh Mars