“Green Zone” (2010)
Why did “Green Zone” flop? (Perhaps not as badly as you might think–it recouped $96m worldwide off a $100m budget, but still). Whatever the reason, it wasn’t that it’s a badly made film, or that the style in which it was made was uncommercial. In fact, it represents a direct straight line from the mega-successful Bourne movies, not just in its star, Matt Damon, but in its look and feel (similar, but arguably calmer and more sophisticated here), and while Greengrass is too intelligent and careful a director to ignore or warp the complexities of the Iraq War, he still does a fine job of fictionalizing and repackaging them for maximum clarity and dramatic impact. In many ways, “Green Zone” tries to be a synthesis: it’s Greengrass engaging with hot-topic politics while also incorporating straight-up thriller-ish elements in service of a narrative that might have just a little bit more “importance” than the continuing adventures of an amnesiac superspy. But despite the skill with which it’s made, and the convincing way it presents a kind of Cliff Notes version of the WMD scandal at the heart of the nation’s justification for going to war, “Green Zone” just doesn’t leave a very lasting impression, as moment-by-moment exciting as it may be.
Damon plays US Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy who begins to smell a rat as his unit is led on one wild goose chase after another in the search for weapons of mass destruction. Stonewalled by his superiors, he is approached by a CIA agent (Brendan Gleeson) and a Wall Street Journal reporter (Amy Ryan) who both have suspicions of their own, and parts of the puzzle. When a local Iraqi man (“United 93” actor Khalid Abdalla) volunteers information that a prominent Baathist meeting may have been held nearby, Miller follows up the lead which brings him into conflict with a corrupt Pentagon official and the soldiers loyal to him. It’s all done with great skill and the action sequences are shot with precision and immediacy, but perhaps the ultimate problem with “Green Zone” is that it’s really about a hunt that turns up nothing, an intelligence source who turns out to be fabricated and an expose of the truth that doesn’t change the fact that an unjustified war was waged for many years thereafter — which is, like the real-life scenario, pretty unsatisfying. All that said, as an example of Greengrass’ evolving style it’s typically heady, tense and gripping stuff, but for once the thorny real-life politics and the depressing wider truths of the situation he depicts feel like they get in the way, and ultimately diminish the film. And so it ends up neither a totally convincing speculation about real, shocking events nor a wholly satisfying Bourne-esque thriller in its own right, and instead falls somewhere in between. In a career characterized by a hard-edged intelligence that matches his punchy style, “Green Zone” feels strangely compromised. [B-]
“The Bourne Ultimatum” (2007)
The third entry in the ‘Bourne’ saga (and the second directed by Greengrass) is ultimately probably the weakest of the franchise but it still features some of the very best moments in the series. “The Bourne Ultimatum” is ultimately more of the same, with Matt Damon‘s amnesiac secret agent still struggling to come to terms with his past (and make things right in his present). The movie’s wafer-thin narrative, which was cobbled together while in production (with work by expert cobblers Tony Gilroy, Scott Z. Burns and George Nolfi), definitely contributes to the overall feeling of déjà vu. The nearly cubist sense of kinetic action cinema that Greengrass established in “The Bourne Supremacy” continues here, except without the surprise and in a marketplace already cluttered with imitators. Sometimes, like during a scene of dialogue between Bourne and the brother of his murdered girlfriend (played by Daniel Bruhl), the camera fidgets for no apparent reason, shaking around the actors’ faces like a nervous bumblebee, something that brings the entire enterprise dangerously close to self-parody. Not that you have time to even register this while watching “The Bourne Ultimatum;” the film’s biggest asset is how quickly it moves. It’s just that this time, some of the international cross cutting and blurry flashbacks feel like the series treading water instead of actual forward momentum.
But then there are those unforgettable set pieces, like an early foot chase in London’s Waterloo train station where Bourne has to remote-control a nervous newspaper reporter played by Paddy Considine, not to mention the climactic car chase in New York City, a dazzling bit of action cinema made all the more compelling by the tactile nature of Greengrass’ cinematography and editing (you practically want to brush the broken glass off of your face when it’s over). There’s also one of the very best human moments in the whole franchise, which is when Bourne sees off his reluctant accomplice (played by Julia Stiles), after she’s had to change her identity after nearly being killed. “It gets easier,” he says in quiet resignation, about the life she now has to lead. It’s a beautiful little beat that demonstrates Greengrass’ ability to find truthful character beats in amongst the high-stakes action. But while the director gives the movie his all, you can still feel a certain creative restlessness; it’s apparent that he has come to the end of his time with the ‘Bourne’ franchise and wants to get out of there. For the next few years, Universal would try to woo the filmmaker back to fold, but he remained steadfast, and while rumours of his involvement with ‘Bourne 5’ swirled as recently as a few months ago, Greengrass was as quick as ever to quash them. [B]
“United 93” (2005)
Less than five years after the events of September 11th, Paul Greengrass wanted to document one of its key stories. And the response was more or less outrage. At the time few could believe that the guy (a British guy at that) who had made “The Bourne Supremacy” would be taking on 9/11, especially when the events were still so fresh in peoples’ minds (supposedly a New York area theater removed the trailer from rotation after audience members complained). But then, of course, when people finally saw the film, they were blown away, with critics embracing the picture and Greengrass snagging his one and only Best Director Oscar nomination to date. Greengrass’ approach was deceptively simple: he cast mostly unknown character actors in most of the major roles and gave many of the roles to non-actors who were just doing their jobs (flight attendants acting like flight attendants, for example). The script was based loosely around transcriptions from the actual event but filled out through elaborate rehearsals. Greengrass even tried to stage the action in as close to “real time” as possible, with the film’s 110 minutes tied closely to the length of the doomed airplane’s flight, from takeoff to crash. And while the film’s title had to be changed from “Flight 93” to “United 93” to avoid confusion with a television movie that was airing around the same time, this ended up being a brilliant swap: the “United” of the title doesn’t just refer to the airline, but to the mentality of those on the plane, who made a decision to try and stop something they knew was far bigger than themselves.
And it’s that incredible humanity that Greengrass captures, but with spartan writing and direction; his documentary-style camera pinballs around the airplane, refusing to indulge in forced sentimentality or soaring moments of heroism. Yes, what they did on that airplane was amazing, but Greengrass doggedly refuses to trumpet the event as anything other than ordinary people coming together to do the right thing ( extraordinary as it is). And it’s this pared-down simplicity that makes “United 93” even more heartbreaking. As a filmmaker, Greengrass is at his best when he makes the human drama as compelling as the suspense or action set pieces he crafts and this is a prime example of that, one in which characters are developed through action more than dialogue and emotions exist naturally instead of being artificially forced. “United 93” remains the best theatrical film released about 9/11 and one of the finest accomplishments in Greengrass’ career. [A]
