Green Zone

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s propaganda minister was credited with saying ‘the bigger the lie the more it will be believed’. Paul Greengrass’s latest film Green Zone (2010) emphasizes Goebbels point. Both the British and American governments claimed that Iraq posed a threat to their security because, it was alleged, that Saddam Hussein had stock piled weapons of mass destruction since the end of the first Gulf war in 1991. Although the film is a work of fiction there is, I believe, a large element of truth in it.

U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Mat Damon) and his team of inspectors have been dispatched by their commanders to find weapons believed to be stockpiled somewhere in Iraq. Travelling between one booby-trapped and treacherous site to the next, the men search for deadly chemical agents but instead stumble upon an elaborate cover-up that subverts the purpose of their mission. Used by operatives with various agendas, Miller must hunt through covert and faulty intelligence for answers that will either clear a rogue regime or escalate a war in an unstable region.

Ignore the critics; this vibrant conspiracy thriller is an honest attempt by the director to expose the lies involved with the decision to go to war. This is gripping story and unfolds at an unrelenting pace. I would class this as the third part of my personal trilogy about the Iraqi war along with HBO’s Generation Kill (2008) and Oscar winning The Hurt Locker (2008)