Green Zone

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

It is a thriller, not a documentary. It's my belief that the nature of the neocon evildoing has by now become pretty clear. Others will disagree. The bottom line is: This is one hell of a thriller.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Damon's prior appearances as Jason Bourne make him credible in this role.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Made with daring and passion, it attempts the impossible and comes remarkably close to pulling it off. So close, in fact, that the skill and audacity used, the shock and awe of this highly entertaining attempt, are more significant than the imperfect results.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

The cast is strong, and Damon is a dependable center for all this, a classic American good guy wanting to know what's rotten and why.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

When Mr. Greengrass made “United 93,” his 2006 reconstruction of one of the Sept. 11 hijackings, some people fretted that it was too soon. My own response to Green Zone is almost exactly the opposite: it’s about time.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Christopher Rouse's rapid-fire editing nervously stitches the stunts, chases, fights and confrontations together. It's a remarkable film.

Empire Mark Dinning

Bourne goes epic. A wham-bam actioner, but its pointed political subtext ensures Damon and Greengrass deliver their most provocative mission yet.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

A master of smash-mash montage and choreographed chaos, Greengrass is the best action director working today, adroit at producing the sense of everyone converging and everything happening simultaneously.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

No matter where your political gullibilities lie, Green Zone is a riveting piece of actioneering.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Watchable in spite of Greengrass as much as because of him. The story is good enough to make viewers want to ignore the photography.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Calvin Wilson

Green Zone can't make up its mind whether it's "The Bourne Insurrection" or "Hurt Locker: The Prequel."

Premiere Jordan Burchette

It’s at times implausible and heavy-handed, but thrillers need villains and it’s not like the Ba’ath Party had an exclusive license on ‘em.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Mixes fact and speculation in a way that’s already raised the ire of some on the right as well as on the left.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

This is a movie that recognizes there's no straight line to the truth, which is part of what makes it vaguely unsatisfying -- though it's also what keeps it honest.

Arizona Republic Bill Goodykoontz

To pretend that the film doesn't make a political statement is silly. Of course it does. It wouldn't be effective at all if it didn't.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

For the first time in Greengrass’ career, the politics too often get ahead of the action, so points that might have been subtly embedded in the story are instead laid out like a left-wing editorial.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Indeed, Green Zone plays a little bit like a video game version of the Oscar-winning film (The Hurt Locker)-- which should tell you right off whether it’s for you or not.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

The jittery, scattershot camerawork of Greengrass's longtime cinematographer, Barry Ackroyd, was used far more coherently in Kathryn Bigelow's Oscar-winning "The Hurt Locker," and the constant blurry close-ups of computer screens and street-level scrums lose their power with each successive cut.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Miller's wake-up call is meant to be ours. Too little and too late? Maybe. But even in this Bourne Zone, Damon and Greengrass haven't shirked their duty to enlighten and entertain.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Partly real and partly, increasingly, fantastic and outlandish in its wishful thinking.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

Green Zone is just an excuse for director Paul Greengrass to haul out his jittery hand-held camera as Miller and Co. sprint through the streets and buildings of Baghdad in pursuit of one villain or another.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Zone feels anticlimactic now. It also pales in comparison to Oscar-winning "The Hurt Locker," the most powerful film yet made about the Iraq war.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Green Zone is somewhere between a blockbuster and a tract -- a traction movie. It whizzes and bangs and sizzles as it chases the truth like a dog off its leash.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

In the wake of the Oscar-winning "The Hurt Locker" - a far better film, and one with a less strident, less obvious agenda - Green Zone arrives looking strangely anachronistic.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

With Green Zone, though, the malaise has finally hit me. So while Damon's Miller uncovers the (inconvenient) truth of why the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, all I want to know is: How does he suggest we get out?

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Green Zone wraps up with a wish-fulfillment fantasy that is about as believable as watching reinforcements riding in to save Custer.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

Screenwriter Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential, Mystic River) is the real culprit here, creating a crude paint-by-numbers fiction that keeps yelling about the importance of the truth while hurtling in the opposite direction.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Director Paul Greengrass has applied his jumpy, tumbling visual style to action blockbusters with Matt Damon and serious dramatizations of political events. This Iraq war drama makes a game attempt to meld the two, though manufacturing thrills takes precedence over any kind of journalistic insight.

Slate Dana Stevens

To suggest that a lone, brave soldier could have set things right with a little amateur sleuthing seems like cinematic wish-fulfillment, an insult both to the intelligence of viewers and to the troops.

New York Observer Rex Reed

Shot by Barry Ackroyd, the same cinematographer who filmed “The Hurt Locker,” and using the same camera techniques, this movie looks like outtakes from a much better film.

Orlando Sentinel Roger Moore

Green Zone isn’t so much a bad movie as a misguided one.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Once Damon's one-man truth squad goes off the reservation and starts behaving too much like Jason Bourne for comfort, the film begins not only spilling more blood but also leaking crucial credibility.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

It’s also rather tawdry. The climax is as ludicrous as any Jack Bauer adventure, and Greengrass is always on shaky ground. Literally.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

What lends the film its grip and its haste is also what makes it unsatisfactory.

Boxoffice Magazine Ray Greene

Green Zone is an exercise in commercial cowardice masquerading as a thriller about political bravery.

Time Out New York Joshua Rothkopf

Not since a Nam-scarred Sly Stallone asked, “Do we get to win this time?” in "Rambo: First Blood Part II" has an American action star been deployed to rewrite history so thoroughly.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

For a while Green Zone generates genuine excitement, as well as plenty of provocation--a fatuous surrogate for Ahmed Chalabi, a pervasive scorn for American planning--but then goes off its own reservation into a won't-fly zone of awkward preachments and hapless absurdities.