« Green Zone: lackluster film that should have been better »

Rating: 2 out of Fordyce  

The Bourne Team is back as Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass reunite for Green Zone. This is a film set in the chaotic early days of the Iraqi War, when no one could be trusted and every decision could detonate unforeseen consequences.

Even though they never say the dreaded words “based on a true story,” Green Zone is a fictionalized script spawned from a nonfiction book. Damon plays Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller, who keeps finding empty buildings where intelligence says there should be weapons of mass destruction. He sets out on a one man mission to uncover what he thinks is a conspiracy.

While the marketing for this movie hints at this film being “Bourne Again,” it falls woefully short of that. Damon goes through the motions with a script that never explains why a low level officer would care, let alone be involved in, this personal hunt for one of the Iraqis from the deck of cards.  He also has a lot of access for an enlisted man, and he makes phone calls and sends emails that would never get connected unless all of America’s security systems were shut off.

There is some good action in this movie and the plot is OK if you overlook the holes, so I will give this one a mediocre 2 out of Fordyce. Damon’s fans and war movie fans will enjoy it more than others. It is rated R.