Green Zone (2010)
Green Zone is a 2010 action thriller film directed by Paul Greengrass. The storyline was conceived from a screenplay written by Brian Helgeland, based on a 2006 non-fiction book Imperial Life in the Emerald City by journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran. The book documented life within the Green Zone in Baghdad during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The key players in the film are General Mohammed Al-Rawi (Yigal Naor), who is hiding in Baghdad during the invasion of Iraq, and US Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon), a Mobile Exploitation Team (MET) leader who is searching for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Miller finds that the majority of the intel given to him is inaccurate. His efforts to find the true story about the weapons are blocked by US Department of Defense official Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear).
The cast also features Brendan Gleeson, Amy Ryan, Khalid Abdalla and Jason Isaacs.
The film was produced by Working Title Films, with financial backing from Universal Pictures, StudioCanal, Relativity Media, Antena 3 Films and Dentsu. Principal photography for the film project began during January 2008 in Spain, later moving to Morocco and the United Kingdom.
Green Zone premiered at the Yubari International Fantastic Film Festival in Japan on February 26, 2010, and was released in Australia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Singapore on March 11, 2010, followed by a further 10 countries the next day, among them the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. The film generally received mixed critical reviews and was a box office flop, as it cost $100 million to produce plus $40 million in marketing, while the global theatrical runs produced only $94,882,549 in gross revenue
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Plot.
On March 19, 2003, Iraqi Army General Mohammed Al-Rawi flees his residence amid the bombardment of Baghdad. Before leaving the compound he passes a notebook to his aide Seyyed, instructing him to warn his officers to get to their safehouses and wait for his signal. Four weeks later, US Army CBRN Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller and his platoon check a warehouse for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. To Miller’s surprise, the warehouse has not been secured, with looters making their way in and out, as soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division are too limited in strength to do much. After a firefight with a sniper Miller finds that the warehouse is empty, the third consecutive time an official mission has led to a dead end. Later, at a debriefing, Miller makes the point that the majority of the intel given to him is inaccurate and anonymous.
High-ranking officials quickly dismiss his concerns. Afterwards CIA Agent Martin Brown tells him that the next place he is to search was inspected by a United Nations team two months prior and that it too has been confirmed empty.
Meanwhile, US Department of Defense official Clark Poundstone welcomes returning Iraqi exile politician Ahmed Zubaidi at the airport. There Poundstone is questioned by Wall Street Journal reporter Lawrie Dayne. She says she needs to speak directly to “Magellan” (based on real-life informant “Curveball”), but Poundstone brushes her off.
Meanwhile, while checking another unpromising site, Miller is approached by an Iraqi who calls himself “Freddy”, who tells him that he saw some Ba’ath Party VIPs meeting in a nearby house.
They include Al-Rawi and his officers and aides in Baghdad, who are discussing the current situation. Al-Rawi decides to wait for the Americans to offer him a deal, and attack if they don’t. As the meeting ends, Miller and his men burst into the house. Al-Rawi narrowly escapes, but Seyyed is captured. Before Miller can extract much information, Seyyed is taken away by Special Forces operators and gets in a fight with Miller’s team—however, Miller keeps Al-Rawi’s notebook. Dayne complains to Poundstone again, but he states that the stakes are much larger than her role in selling newspapers.
Development.
In January 2007, after completing The Bourne Ultimatum, director Paul Greengrass announced his intent to adapt a film of the 2006 non-fiction book Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a journalist for The Washington Post. Greengrass wrote a script based on the book, working with researchers Kate Solomon and Michael Bronner, who helped the director research for the 2006 film United 93. The script was reported to be developed more in advance than the script for The Bourne Ultimatum, which had undergone changes during production. Screenwriter Tom Stoppard was originally requested to write theRELATED:
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script for Greengrass, but because Stoppard was too busy, screenwriter Brian Helgeland instead collaborated with the director to shape the film’s premise. Greengrass expressed interest in casting in the lead actor Matt Damon, with whom he had worked on The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum, and the actor joined the project in June 2007. Actors Amy Ryan, Greg Kinnear, and Antoni Corone were later cast in January 2008. Greengrass said of the project’s contemporary relevance, “Film shouldn’t be disenfranchised from the national conversation. It is never too soon for cinema to engage with events that shape our lives.”
Filming, Home media.
Production of Green Zone was originally slated to begin in late 2007. Instead, it began at the Los Alcázares Air Base in Spain on January 10, 2008, moved to Morocco, and finished filming in the UK in December 2008. The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray in United States on June 22, 2010. The initial Blu-ray Disc includes audio commentary with director Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon, deleted scenes with a video commentary by Damon, Greengrass and his son Kit, several featurettes, BD-Live, My Scenes and Digital Copy on disc.